


a heart just can't contain all of this empty space

by TheMermaidLord



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: (surprised?? the team were), Batfamily Feels, Batfamily Shenanigans, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Identity Reveal, Jason Todd is Alive, References to Depression, Team Bonding, Team as Family, big sister artemis crock, lots and lots of explosions, slutbomb dick grayson, sure would be nice if someone had informed the team of this, the batkids are emotionally repressed idiots, there's a new robin, wally is pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2019-12-26 20:59:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18290129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMermaidLord/pseuds/TheMermaidLord
Summary: The Batfamily shares information on a strictly 'need-to-know' basis. The Team is of the opinion that this basis is a little too 'need-to-know'.It starts when Dick disappears for months with no explanation, and, apparently, there's no end in sight.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> -title from Bright Eyes' 'Four Winds'. love that song!!
> 
> -my aim is to have this fic span important developments in the history of the batfamily, from the perspective of the team- i.e. how these events could've played out in the world of the young justice cartoon. first up: where the FUCK is dick and who's this tasmanian devil in his robin costume
> 
> -i just wanted to write baby jason but shhhhh

Kaldur respects the Batman. He’d go so far as to say he even appreciates the man’s methods. (Not that he’d ever admit it if this wasn’t the case, he does have a healthy sense of self-preservation, but, regardless. Off topic.)  As long as he shows that respect, this conversation will go _fine_ , okay? So his palms can stop shaking and sweating.

Any. Second. Now.                                                                                                                          

This is ridiculous.                                            

He approaches Batman, a black, hulking shape, speaking quietly to Black Canary. Tries not to look to obviously like he’s waiting for them to be done, then clears his throat.

Batman turns to regard him, coolly through the pure white slits in his mask, and Kaldur swears he feels a bead of sweat trickle down the back of his neck.

“Sir,” he says, voice a little higher than usual. He can feel the eyes of the Team prickling at his back, and knows that if he messes this up, he’ll be shamed brutally. Picking straws for this honour was, in hindsight, a terrible idea.

“Kaldur’ahm,” says the Bat, and oh, cool. He remembers Kaldur’s name, at least. Small mercies. “Yes?”

“We- that is- the team and I. We were hoping for a status update on Robin. It’s been a while- about five months- and- we’re just hoping he’s okay. Sir.”

Batman _mutters_ , under his breath and vindictive, something that sounds awfully like _how should I know_. Kaldur’s head is spinning. Okay, then.

“The situation is complicated. Be assured, Robin is fine. You’ll be updated on the subject- for now it’s need-to-know.”

Kaldur’s dumbfounded on the inside, but he must be doing a good job of not showing it, because Batman nods like the matter is settled and leaves. Kaldur turns to where the Team are waiting, all wearing expressions of identical, unsubtle curiosity, and makes a _no idea_ face. They all slump, Artemis scuffing her boot along the ground. He walks over, disappointed.

“I mean, we got twenty more words than expected?” He sighs. “It’s ‘need-to-know’.”

Wally makes an unintelligible groaning noise. _“Oh my god_ …”

There hasn’t been an assignment for a few days, and they’re all buzzing with misplaced energy as they wander over to the living area and collapse on the sofas. Artemis is twisting a stray piece of hair between her fingers, an expression like she’s deliberating interrogating Kaldur anyways, just for the hell of it. Wally is slumped on the ground, leaning against her legs, staring at his phone screen. Conner and M’gann are sitting together, from the looks on their faces probably commiserating telepathically. Even La’gaan- brought over only recently on a sort of exchange programme from Atlantis- looks upset, and he’d barely _known_ Robin.

Kaldur looks over at Wally, a little desperate. “Nothing? You’re sure?”

Wally sighs. “I told you. He barely texts anymore, and whenever I ask him any personal questions, he just _ignores_ them! We talk about random shit, same as we always do, but I can’t get anything out of him. He’ll talk to me as Dick, just not as Robin.”

La’gaan looks mildly interested. “Robin’s name was _Dick_?” Artemis elbows him in the side, looking like she can’t decide whether to smile or scowl.

M’gann looks up, apparently interested. “Maybe… whatever he’s going through, it’s as Dick, not as Robin? Maybe he’s just focusing on his real person problems for a while?”

Conner grins at her. “You should be a therapist.”

Wally looks thoughtful. “I mean… I'm no World’s Greatest Detective, but… he always seems kinda pissed when B comes up. Do you think..?”

“Daddy issues?” Artemis laughs, looks around. “Oh. You guys were serious.”

Kaldur thinks, feels his brow furrowing. “He and Batman… they’ve always been this _team_. It’s hard to believe.”

Wally nods. “The Dynamic Duo, and all that. But Dick’s growing up- I guess I never really thought he’d be a sidekick _forever_.”

M’gann looks like she finds that hard to digest. “You’re saying he could just be done? With everything? With _us_?”

Wally shrugs, kicking his feet. “Dunno. I guess we can only wait to find out.”

“You _hate_ waiting.”

“Yeah. I'm gonna have to go anyways, if there’s no mission. Don’t wanna piss off my folks.”

He stands, and Artemis stands with him. “Urgh, same. Walk me to the zeta?”

His smile turns soft. “Anytime, babe.”

It’s sweet to see them, still so new, figuring things out, but absence weights the air nonetheless. Something about Robin had been buoyant, irreverent and joyful. Maybe it was ‘cause he’d been doing this the longest, despite being the youngest of them, but he’d been a little sunlight in a job that so often felt dark all the way through. Without him the Team will survive, Kaldur knows, but already they feel like they’re crumbling a little. A future without Dick isn’t one he’d ever had to envision before, and the thought of it settles ill in his mind.

The team _adapts_. They’re good at that. If there’s an empty space at the end of Kaldur’s directions where Dick would’ve slotted a joke, if Artemis finds herself looking over her shoulder to check a Robin who was never on the mission in the first place hasn’t disappeared on her again, well. These things are what they are.

Until, well. Until.

\-----

It’s a sloppy, lazy kind of day off. The kind that sees Conner and La’gaan rise at noon, maybe later, when M’gann bakes rows and rows of inedible pastries, just to have something to. Days like this make Kaldur long for his home, for long, sweet, lazy mornings with Garth and Tula. He sees his team bored, lethargic, spread out around Mount Justice, and loves them, in his own way, but cannot keep out the voice that says _this is a waste of time. You have a life to get back to._ _These people don’t need you- what have you even achieved here?_ He knows the voice lies, that it is the product of being caught between two lives, even if he has committed to one, now.

Robin was good at getting him out of this mood, but, well. It’s been seven months, now. And so usually the best person to be around when the voice comes knocking is _Roy_ , of all people. Red Arrow doesn’t do lethargy, doesn’t do lazy days. He’s sharp and bright and dangerous in a way that’s very good at cutting through Kaldur’s bullshit, reasserting his priorities.

There’s also the fact that wherever Roy goes, action is sure to follow. But Roy isn’t here. Kaldur sits, scrolling mindlessly through the League’s files, hunting for a mission. The air is far too still.

_On Neptune_ , he should learn to count his blessings.

A message bleeps on the screen in front of him, pulling him down from his thoughts. It’s from Batman, and he squints at it, suspicious. If the Bat has something to say to them, it’s usually said face to face, not in writing. He taps on the file and reads it, blankly.

/ _Aqualad. Please assemble the team in the main foyer. I'm sending in a new recruit._

_-B_ /

__Oh, shit. They’ve had a few new guys- there’s Lagoon Boy, of course, Troia drops by when she can, and Bumblebee seems nice. But this is strange in a way it’s hard to pin down. Maybe it’s that Batman is dictating who’s on the team without even giving them the courtesy of showing up in person.

He calls for Conner, M’gann, and La’gaan over the intercom, and shoots a text to Wally and Artemis. It’s all he can do- they’re probably in school, now, after all. On a moment’s thought, he texts Roy too, just on the off-chance.

Conner appears first, looking disgruntled. “What’s going on? Is there a mission?”

Seeing the other two appear behind him, Kaldur shakes his head. “New recruit. I don’t know either. Very mysterious, or something.”

“That’s cool!” M’gann offers, ever-optimistic. “I hope they’re nice.”

“I hope they’re not _staying_ ,” grumbles La’gaan. “I have things just how I like ‘em, don’t need some newbie come to mess everything up.”

“You’re the newbie, newbie,” Conner says, but there’s no bite to it.

The zeta says, “ _Recognised: Robin, B01._ ” Kaldur watches La’gaan’s mouth snap shut on his retort. Happiness bubbles uncontrollably in his chest as blue light surges but then there’s that voice saying _something’s not right here and you know it_ , and what’s worse is he _does_.

Red and black and yellow solidify, and out of the corner of his eye Kaldur can see Conner’s mouth make the shape of Dick’s name, but next to him M’gann’s eyes are very wide and sad, and _that isn’t Dick_.

The new Robin shifts on his feet- _so small, surely Dick was never that small_ \- clearly uncomfortable with all the eyes on him. “Jeez, guys,” he says, all defence and native Gotham, “no need to look so upset.”

The team stares.

He’s _young,_ dotted with freckles, bruises, a scab on his lip where it’s been split. “Yeah, I'm not Dick. Sorry to fuckin’ disappoint.”

Kaldur blinks. Oh, he’s in no way qualified to deal with this. He’s just thinking that Garth would know exactly what to say here when M’gann is there, smiling warmly.

“Hey,” she says, “we’re not disappointed, just surprised, yeah?

The kid kicks at the ground, still scowling. Even through the sulk there’s a shimmer of something undeniably _Robin_ about him, and he looks like he’ll grow to be quite the bruiser- maybe already is. _Huh_ , thinks Kaldur, _maybe the Bat knew what he was doing_. Then he thinks _what’s_ Dick _doing, then? He can’t be pleased about this, surely_.

“Look, Bane’s back in Gotham, and B wanted me out. Said he’d introduce me to you guys, but I don’t need a fuckin’ helicopter parent. But if you’re busy, I’ll just keep out of your way. I'm good at that, okay?”

It’s delivered so sharp, so very much on the offense, that Kaldur kind of wants to hug the kid. He looks at B’s latest steaming pile of issues, and makes a choice. The team seem inclined to agree, judging by the looks on their faces.

(Except Lagoon Boy, obviously. He just looks kind of bored.)

“Nah,” says Conner, stepping forward, hand outstretched, all his edges suddenly soft and welcoming. “We’re not busy, right? I'm Superboy.”

The new Robin, seemingly emboldened, steps forward, shakes his hand. “Yeah,” he says, stance relaxing just a touch. “I kinda figured. Anybody tell you you look just like the old man?”

Conner raises an eyebrow, drily. “It’s been mentioned.” He gestures toward the rest of them. “This is Miss M, our resident Martian. She goes by Megan. That’s Lagoon Boy-“

“-La’gaan to you, newbie-”

“and Kaldur, Aqualad, our fearless leader. Or something. You can call me Conner.”

“Conner, huh? Not sure I'm allowed to tell you my name. Not like it’d mean anything to anyone.”

Kaldur inclines his head, relieved beyond words at the tension seeping out of the room. “Whatever you’re comfortable with, Robin. How would you like to spar? Show the team what you’re made of?”

Robin considers it, pale and pointed face twisting. Neptune, this kid needs to eat more. Kaldur thinks of Dick’s tales of the family butler, thinks this new Robin will probably do just fine for himself. “Alright,” he says, either a man of few words or just more nervous than he’s letting on. Kaldur prepares to rise but Robin turns to where Conner is still standing in front of him and says, “How about it, clone?” and Kaldur really should’ve seen this coming.

The new kid’s found someone with any anger management issues that resemble his own and _imprinted_. Like ducklings. Kaldur thinks? He’s not excellent with surface zoology.

Conner grins, and oh no, it’s possibly too late for damage control. This new Robin can only be about thirteen, so maybe Kaldur should be happy Superboy’s making friends a little closer to his own age? Or maybe- maybe not. They move into position, tension crackling like static. La’gaan and M’gann look like they’re watching a train crash in slow motion- impossible to stop or to look away from.

Conner nods, that universal signal for, to use Wally’s terminology, ‘ _let’s fuck some shit up_ ’. Then they’re flying at each other and for a second Kaldur thinks he’ll be scraping brand-new-Robin brains off the back wall for the rest of the day, but the kid _twists_ , gets a lock around Conner’s arm and flips him, sends him to the floor. Granted, Superboy almost certainly let him do it, but to use another Wally-ism, low in the throat and impressed: ‘ _damn._ ’

The kid lets Conner stand, regain his balance, which is a good sign. Honourable. There’s something of Dick in that, and in the kicks he levels at Superboy as they charge at each other again, but much less in the way he blocks Conner’s punches, putting his whole weight behind it, instead of light and free and already-moving like Dick does. As a result, he staggers, and Conner gets in close, ready to throw him, and suddenly Robin’s all elbows and knees, three flailing strikes in quick succession to his stomach, his throat, his eyes. Anyone else would surely back down under it- it’s like no fighting Kaldur’s ever seen, not in any rulebook he’s ever read. But Conner’s _Conner_ and he only takes a step back to avoid being _blinded_.

Apparently, it’s enough. Robin kicks at his kneecap, his whole weight behind it, instinctive, like a feral thing.  He presses _forward_ while Superboy’s momentarily off-balance, gets another elbow in his windpipe, makes his breathing falter. Then one of his fists is in Conner’s hair and he _drags_ sideways, legs wrapping around Conner’s thighs, entire body focused on making Superboy fall, apparently damning the consequences. It works, too, and they crash to the ground, Robin on top, the jolt splitting his lip freshly. It’s life-or-death in a way he’s never seen in a training exercise- M’gann’s biting her lip, worried, and La’gaan can’t look away.

Of course, how it ends is inevitable. Robin’s whole weight is on Conner’s throat, his hips, keeping him down, but Superboy raises one arm and _slams_ him to the ground, flips them, easy as swatting a fly. The pair breathe heavy, one, two, three, and the automated voice says, “ _Victory: Superboy_.” Robin makes a jagged noise, blood on his teeth, and the tension doesn’t seep out of Kaldur’s frame until he realises the kid is _laughing_.

“ _Jesus_ ,” says Superboy, pulling himself up, offering Robin his hand. There’re no visible marks on him, the way there usually aren’t, but he’s flushed with exertion and his eyes are shining. “There’s no way you learned that from _Batman_.”

Robin takes it, all smirk and sharp lines. “Nah. The _Narrows_ taught me that.” He looks like he knows exactly how much he’s turned their little dynamic upside down, _redefined_ Robin, and yeah, Bats had the right idea with this one. From the other side of the room there’s a slow clap and a female voice says, “The Narrows, huh?”

They all spin, topfull with adrenaline, but it’s only Wally and Artemis. Artemis is grinning, hot-blooded. “I didn’t live too far from there, once. That’s what corner of Hell the big bad Bat dragged you out of?”

The newfound, bloody freedom in Robin seems to drain away, his tone a little more restrained as he says, “pretty sure that’s classified,” and looks down at his hands. Kaldur examines Artemis’ reaction- she looks impressed, eyes bright, but swimming with unanswered questions. Kaldur doesn’t have any answers either.

Wally looks a little like his world is falling apart. They both were here long enough to watch the fight, then, or part of it. He sympathises- it’s one thing to know Dick is gone, that his iteration of Robin is retired permanently, but to _see_ it- splashed in blood on the face of this feral, streetwise kid- it’s a lot.

He sighs, slips the Team Leader mask seamlessly back over his features. “You both fought well. Superboy, that was impressive adaptation, but you were visibly surprised for most of the fight. Work on controlling that.” He turns to face Robin, who’s now apparently morphed right back into the sulky teenager they’d first met at the prospect of being judged.

“Nice work, Robin.” The kid looks up in surprise. “A little unorthodox, maybe, but perhaps this team has become too orthodox.” It’s a Dick thing to say. And, okay. That’s a smile so pure, so bright, that it looks out of place on a face as beat up as Robin’s is. “We’ll work on your throws, and how far you’re willing to compromise yourself to take down a mark. But you’re clearly trained in dealing with opponents much larger than yourself, and it shows. Good job.”

Artemis clears her throat, shooting him a reproachful look, probably for praising the kid on a fight that could’ve gotten him killed ten times over. “You might wanna have Megan take a look at that lip, yeah?” Jason nods, moves away, practically vibrating with adrenaline. Artemis waits until the pair are out of sight to blow out a breath, eyes wide.

“Jesus, Kaldur. This what you wanted us here for?”

He looks at Wally, tries to make him understand the position he’s in using only his eyes. “I didn’t know it would be- you know. I was only told we were to assemble to meet a new recruit. My expectations were… surpassed.”

Wally shifts. “Doesn’t fight much like Dickie, does he?”

“He’s not much like Dick at all,” Conner says. “He’s… brutal. I guess it doesn’t have to be a bad thing?”

La’gaan grins at him. “Dude, you’re practically adopting the kid already. Gonna fight Bats for custody?” Conner scowls.

Kaldur clears his throat. “I want to ask about Dick, too, but… maybe give him a couple of weeks? He seems… fragile isn’t the word?” None of them have expressed the intention to ask about Dick, but if he knows them, and he does, they’re thinking about it.

“Temperamental?” Artemis offers.

“Insecure?” asks Conner.

“Nah,” Wally says, “you guys aren’t getting it. He just feels like he’s got a lot to prove. Which, y’know, he _does_. We’ll give him some space.”

The group turn to look at him, one by one, until his shoulders slump, as if under the weight of how harsh he’s being. “Okay, fine, fine. He doesn’t need too prove anything; not if Bats has already taken him on, not to us. I just. I don’t know why Dick wouldn’t tell me something like this? It’s _me._ ”

Artemis sighs. “He’s a _bat_ , Wal. We should’ve seen this coming, really.”

Conner raises an eyebrow. “Maybe he’s undercover. Like really, serious, _super-undercover_. Like pretend-to-betray-your-family-and-be-replaced undercover.”

Artemis snorts and nobody else looks like they’re immediately going to elbow him, so Kaldur makes a discreet gesture at La’gaan, who obliges. Because he’s a Good Team Leader. Or something.

M’gann leads Robin back over. He seems to have calmed down, finally, his lip good as new in a smile that’s curling and wicked.

“C’mon,” he says, a head shorter than all of them. “Who’s next?” Kaldur kind of wants to ruffle his hair- it’s dark and fluffy and unblemished, unlike the rest of him.

Artemis grins, and it’s genuine. “I’ll spar if you promise not to use me to try and _kill yourself_. Also, elbows and knees are off-limits.” Artemis _loves_ fighting dirty, so this is her trying to be a good influence. It’s sweet. Robin smiles up at her like she’s the best thing in the world, new and shiny.

“Oh, yeah, I'm chill now.” That smile turns sharp. “Guess I just had somethin’ to _prove_.”

And- _there_. That’s the first of many times Kaldur will look at this new Robin, teeth and edges and hot blood pumping, and think, _ooh, this one’s trouble_.

Five minutes later, as Robin and Artemis dance in front of him, their own particular brands of combatives clashing beautifully, Kaldur feels a warm presence behind him. He steps back discreetly.

“What do you think?” he mutters, low, keeping their little exchange private, at least for now. Roy always looks so fragile these days, shaky around the edges, skin pale and swathed with blue-black bruises.

He looks at Kaldur with a grin that splits his worn face, says, “From over here? Looks like he’s a born survivor.”

\-----

They try; they really do. The Team makes it two weeks of not mentioning the name ‘Grayson’ when Robin’s there. And really, that’s just it- as he’s around them for longer, gradually more and more comfortable until at some point he pack-bonds with all of them and becomes fiercely territorial, as his sharp lines mellow out and his posture softens- he’s _Robin_. Not the new Robin, or the kid. He’s Robin in swirling red and yellow as he fights, Robin flushed as he trains, quick and rhythmic, Robin soft and lethargic, curled up napping on one of the sofas. They haven’t seen that feral, fight-or-flight Robin again, not yet, and Kaldur feels bizarrely honoured that it was something they’d been allowed to see at all. Like the kid had mapped himself out in front of them, all but said, _take it or leave it_.

And so he doesn’t find himself missing Dick’s Robin, not anymore. But Dick himself is still a gaping hole, an absent friend, and it’s not a surprise that after two weeks of potential knowledge hanging tantalising in front of them, one of the Team cracks under the strain.

It’s only a surprise that it’s _La’gaan_.

They’re in the communal area, having just finished a mission that had them up for thirty-four hours straight. Wally says that if they go to bed now, at one thirty pm, they’ll wake up in fourteen hours with their schedule shot to hell. Wally deals with jetlag the most, being a speedster and all, so it’s better to trust him on these things.

They exist, then, in a strange sort of purgatory- Kaldur is staring down at his hands, trying to meditate without dropping off, Conner is pacing sleepily, M’gann has given up and is napping in an armchair, and Robin’s curled up small by the edge of the sofa with a paperback. From here, Kaldur can just make out the title- ‘Pet Sematary’. That’s another new development- Dick never read, but, off-duty, Robin can’t seem to stop.

And La’gaan. La’gaan is talking. He slips into and out of English, with an entirely new topic every time, and a lot of inventive swearing. Mostly it’s stories that Atlanteans tell their children, but then he runs out and moves onto mission reports. If it keeps him awake, Kaldur doesn’t have a problem with it- it’s keeping Kaldur awake too, actually. The problem arises when, in the midst of a story about Dick disappearing in the middle of a mission, _again_ , he pauses and asks, “say, Robin, what’s your big brother up to, these days, anyhoo?” If he notices the room go still, he doesn’t react and neither does Robin.

The kid just considers for a second, and then his face goes all horrified. “You mean he hasn’t _told_ you?” he huffs, voice a little high.

“No,” Conner says, quickly, “no he most certainly has not told us _anything_ , please God tell us something?”

Robin snorts. “Dramatic _bastard_.  I bet he’ll have some bullshit excuse.” He snaps his book shut, stands. “Alright, I can’t do this anymore. Lemme take a quick nap, and tonight, I’ll _take_ you, alright?”

They all blink at him, nod very fast. He smirks and heads off to his room, door clicking shut behind him. Sleep-deprived and laggy, they turn to stare at each other.

“Well,” says La’gaan, unrepentant, “that was easy.”

Kaldur scrubs a hand across his eyes. “I’ll text KF and Artemis.”

Robin emerges again after four hours, looking perfectly refreshed, which Kaldur feels is pretty rude of him. He takes one look at the rest of them, barely conscious yet thrumming with excitement, and snorts.

“We can’t _go_ yet, Jesus. You guys knew Dick. He was a creature of the _night_ , not,” he squints at the clock, “like, of the late afternoon.”

They exchange sheepish looks. Wally and Artemis arrived the second they got off from school, thrilled to have this mystery finally solved, only to be forced into this odd limbo of _waiting_. Robin regards them for a second. “You guys are so pathetically far up my brother’s ass,” he decides, as if he’ll feel better about it if he can make fun of them. “ _Please go to bed_.”

He picks up his book again and resumes reading, so Kaldur feels like they have no other choice. Ah, well, goodbye any attempt at a healthy sleeping schedule. It’s probably for the best- his vision keeps blacking out without his permission.

At his left side, Conner says, “Kid’s probably got the right idea. I think I can taste colours now?”

“What, you didn’t know Superman could do that? Dude, your true power has manifested!”

“Fuck off, Wally.”

Kaldur had thought it would be difficult to sleep, initially, the excitement of the promise of _finally_ seeing Dick smeared across his mind, sending static jolts through his brainwaves. But, actually, his head hardly hits the pillow before he spaces all the way out, a sensation like he’s falling backwards into the dark. Then nothing at all.

About six hours later he wakes to bright flashing lights and some awful wailing kind of pop music. He’d thought it was a good idea to let Robin access the Young Justice computer _why,_ exactly _?_ Kaldur staggers out into the main chamber with the rest of them as the music finally cuts off, just rested enough to not follow through on his first instinct, read: murder the kid.

He’s still allowed to want to, though.

Robin’s by the zeta, smirking at them in full gear. They get their equipment, lagging partially just to be spiteful. But by the time Kaldur’s ready all the anger’s all drained out of him. Everytime he sneaks a look at the kid his expression is less smug, more scared. Like he thinks they’ll find Dick and that’s it, they won’t want him anymore. It’s the kind of insecurity that’s learned over a lifetime, and not easily dissolved in any one way. God, Kaldur has dealt with this badly- losing Dick, finding Robin. He’s so tired it drags at the bones of him.

Artemis seems to have noticed this as well, and after she finishes calibrating her bow and slings it across her back, she crosses to Robin, wraps the kid in a one-armed hug. Surprisingly, he doesn’t even try to escape. After about ten seconds, he grumbles, “your arrows are sticking into me, lady.”

“Suck it up,” she says. Robin tries to pretend he isn’t smiling, pink and pleased. Not for the first time Kaldur wonders _Jesus, where did Batman find this kid?_

“Alright,” he says, when the Team is assembled, practically vibrating with excitement. “Whenever you’re ready, squad leader.”

It’s probably a bad idea, but entirely worth it for the red blush that stains Robin’s face. “C’mon, then,” he mutters, sets the zeta co-ordinates for Blüdhaven.

Blüdhaven?

Robin zetas through first, as customary for an op leader, and the rest of them exchange confused glances as he disappears, dissolving into blooming light. Kaldur follows, re-appearing in a dingey alley to rival Gotham City, current undisputed queen of dingey alley championships worldwide. He guesses bats have a type, although why the Dick that he’d known, sunshine and snark, would _ever_ seek out a place like this is beyond him. Does he have an apartment here, now? But why would it need to be night for them to visit? Robin doesn’t look inclined to explain anything, glancing, antsy, into the darkness.

The others appear, one by one, squinting as their eyes adjust. The sky here is entirely starless. Once Wally arrives, pulls a rusty piece of corrugated iron back over the teleporter, Robin’s up, moving, scaling the grimy apartment building like it’s second nature. Kaldur’s just close enough after him to catch the tail end of the conversation he’s having into a handheld communicator.

“It’s nothing, ran into a lead that led me here. Nothing to do with B, I swear, I'm doing my own thing. You’d help me if you were a good fucking brother, jackass.”

Garbled static.

“That’s what I thought. The building I'm on’s right by the river, opposite some stripper joint called ‘Jones’ Girls’.”

Kaldur’s reeling. _Brothers?_

“What do you _mean you know the place, gross, ha-”_ and he sounds so _young_ , laughing into the comm, and so very much like Dick. He clicks off the audio and turns to face them, a little more surefooted, now he knows all the stakes and they’re entirely floundering.

“He’s on his way. I’ve been told I got a talent for bullshit, so. You’re fuckin’ welcome.” He regards them for a second, like he’s on the verge of explaining what’s going on, and then, “wanna surprise him?”

Kaldur really, really should say no. Should demand to take the comm and talk like grownups. But Robin _isn’t_ a grownup, he’s thirteen, tops, and Kaldur gave him this ‘mission’. The kid’s red-cheeked and thrilled with it, glowing in the cold air, and he wants so badly just to let him have this. Besides, Artemis is already nodding enthusiastically. It’s out of Kaldur’s hands.

Robin ushers them quickly into the shadows with the practiced ease of somebody who’s spent a lifetime hiding in them. He then sits smack-dab in the middle of the roof, cross-legged, seemingly immersed in his phone. Little electronic bleeps and bloops float out across the filthy cityscape.

Only a hushed, gliding whisper betrays the presence of anybody else in the silence of the night, and then a long, lithe figure in black and blue is dropping from God-knows-where. Although the logical part of Kaldur knows theoretically that it _must_ be Dick, taller and bulkier and certainly _subtler_ than they’ve known him, the knowledge only solidifies as the figure lands. He rolls into it, muscles rippling- _Neptune that suit is tight_ , just like Robin does. Did. This Robin is finding landings to be a work in progress, but, oh, does he love the fall.

Dick isn’t Robin anymore, but he’s still- _oh._ Oh, okay. That’s- a lot of things suddenly make sense.

Wally does the equivalent of a wolf-whistle into the mental link. It’s somehow appropriate.

_No fucking way,_ says Conner, and Kaldur’s inclined to agree with him.

“Nightwing,” Robin smirks. Of course. Of course, he’d choose that name. “Long time no see, dude. House is almost quiet without you and the bossman trying to rip out each other’s _throats_.”

From here, behind Dick, Kaldur can see perfectly the little tense of his shoulders that means he’s trying to control a wince.

“Little Wing,” Dick says, and _holy fuck that’s Dick_ , his voice tender like Kaldur’s rarely heard it. “It’s late. You’re a long way from home.”

“Stop playing cliché bingo,” says the kid, filling out every inch of Robin, like he needs to prove it’s his, now. Of course it is. He didn’t take it- it was _relinquished_. “What, are short, brooding declarations a mandatory thing with the ex-sidekick gig, like all the black is?”

Dick huffs out a breath, like he’s trying not to laugh. “C’mon, little bird. Why’re you here? On the comm you said you had a lead-”

“Oh, yeah,” says Robin, shit-eating, slouched entirely comfortable in a dark city that isn’t his own. “Yeah, I remember that. I was totally lying. Sorry, not sorry.”

Dick goes, “what?” and Wally clears his throat. The immediate 180° rotation ‘Nightwing’ pulls off, flawlessly in less than a second, is a joy to behold. Kaldur can see his face, finally, or most of it, and that, at least, hasn’t changed a bit.

Robin adds, “Dickhead,” helpfully.

Dick’s eyes are very wide. “ _Jason_ ,” he says, reproachfully. Robin flinches back.

“Dude, _what the hell_!”

“Me _what the hell?_ You _what the hell!_ ”

Wally clears his throat again. Megan says, “Jason, huh?” aloud. Robin, _Jason_ , glares.

Dick rubs the back of his neck, looking supremely uncomfortable. “Uh, hey guys. You’ve met the replacement, I see?”

They glare at him.

“Nice… night for it?”

Artemis steps forward. “You _left us hanging._ For months. Would it have been _that hard_ to text? Just, _hi guys, sorry I haven’t been around to help, you might be meeting the_ new fucking Robin _soon so don’t freak out on him? I'm going to be off doing my new, edgy thing in fucking_ Blüdhaven? Blüdhaven, Dick?”

Wally cuts in, buzzing with irritation. “It’s like Gotham’s younger, uglier sister, jeez. You didn’t even _try_ to be original, dude.”

Jason is hanging back, sulking, but he looks a little vindicated, too.

“It was rude of you to just up and disappear on us, Dick,” M’gann pleads. “We worried!”

“We understand you must’ve been going through a lot _now_ ,” Kaldur says, gesturing to the new suit. From this angle he can see the bird motif, illuminated in ultramarine, stripes running down to his fingertips. “But what were we supposed to do, figure that out on our own?”

“Can’t all be the World’s Greatest fucking Detective,” Conner says, defensive. “You should’ve told us.”

Dick sags, all the pretence gone out of him. They turn to La’gaan, slightly expectant.

“What?” he says, “I didn’t really care.”

Jason snorts. “Fuckin’ _liar_. You’re the guy that asked.”

It startles a laugh out of Dick, and very gradually the tension seeps away, disperses into the gloomy air. “Yeah,” he says, “you guys are right. I just. I needed some space, and then there was Jay, and I didn’t wanna encroach on _his_ space, y’know?”

“Shut the fuck up,” says Robin, “don’t use me as your excuse. ‘Snot like it helped. They think they’re subtle, but they never shut _up_ about you.”

They regard each other for a second more, but there’s no thorns to the silence, and when Artemis says, “C’mere,” arms outstretched, Dick does.

“Nightwing, huh,” says Wally, voice muffled by the impromptu group hug. Dick’s influence. “It suits you.”

“Pixie boots were getting a little small,” says Dick, thickly, and yeah, okay, now he’s just straight up crying.

Outside their little circle, fiddling with his sleeve uncomfortably, Kaldur can see Jason. And sure, he looks jealous, and insecure, and Kaldur doesn’t have the first clue how to fix that. But there’s something just a little happy, just a little hopeful, too. He’s a firecracker, a fizzing nuclear fusion reaction of potential, bandaged up in anger and trapped in his own headspace. But the team’ll be here for him, his family too.

Kaldur reckons he’s going to do just fine.

\-----

Kaldur can pinpoint the exact moment when the waitress, eyes glazed over, clearly near the end of her shift, takes a look at their misfit squad of underage vigilantes, plus Blüdhaven’s very own brand-new Dark Knight, and mentally goes _fuck it_.

“Table for eight, yeah?” she asks, blearily, and Kaldur nods in affirmation, shooting her a grateful smile. She grabs a handful of menus and dumps them in a window booth, even remembering to fix on her service smile halfway through. He swears she pinches herself on her way back to the kitchen, after Artemis asks immediately asks for ‘enough coffee to send a small elephant into cardiac arrest. Please.’

They sit there, squashed against each other. La’gaan’s at the head of the table, having snatched a chair from the bar, and he regards them unimpressed like a king looking over his subjects. Kaldur feels an almost overpowering urge to laugh.

Dick’s trapped between M’gann and Conner opposite him- partially to stop him from escaping and partially because Bad and Naughty Runaway Robins get the Third Wheel Seat to Atone for their Crimes. There’s in theory space for La’gaan on their other side, but he’d taken one look and said the Atlantean equivalent of ‘hell no’. Dick seems resigned to his fate, even _happy_. “You’re gonna like this place,” he says, grinning. “They do breakfast all day _and_ all night.”

Jason grins at him from next to Kaldur. There’s four of them in the one seat, and so the kid’s practically on Artemis’ _lap_ , but he doesn’t seem to mind. Artemis is already treating him like the little brother she presumably never had, so. “You’re trying to redeem yourself with food,” he says, ever-so-sweet, “but it’s not going to work on me.” He casts a hungry eye on the tray of waffles another waitress carries past. “Well,” he amends, “maybe a little.”

Wally reaches over Artemis, ruffles the kid’s hair. He only looks as put out as is strictly necessary.

“You tell him, kid.”

“It won’t work on me,” Conner announces. “I’ve had longer to work up a grudge. Try harder.” M’gann looks at him sceptically.

Dick looks sort of pink. “Okay, well I don’t really have an _explanation_ , per se-”

Jason makes an exasperated noise. “Sure, you do. It’s like: _sorry guys, can’t turn up to Mount Justice right now ‘cause if B tries to give me an order, I’ll throw a fuckin’ tantrum on the floor._ Easy.”

Dick goes even pinker, groans. “It’s not exactly like that-”

Jason turns to his rapt audience, eyes wide like _get a load of this guy_. He seems to have figured out that, as the baby, and as the only guy who’s going to give anybody any answers, he holds all the power here. “Oh, please. The last time he came over to the cave, he said _sorry I forgot my bat-whatever_ and B said _I hope you’re not being this careless in Bl_ _üdhaven_ and then there was just silence for thirteen minutes? I was _counting_. It’s so awkward. Even when I tried talking they’d just _grunt_.”

M’gann looks horrified. “So it’s like your dad and your big brother are fighting?”

Jason looks _equally_ horrified. “What? Batman isn’t my _dad_. And Dickface ain’t my brother, _really_. He’s _Dick’s_ dad, yeah, but it ain’t like that. I jus’ call him that to piss him off.”

Kaldur resists the urge to raise an eyebrow.

“Right,” says Dick. “’Cause the last time I was in Gotham, _what_ _I remember is_ , you made him finish patrol early so he’d help you with your _math homework_.”

“That’s what _partners_ do. Duh.”

Dick looks like he’s already tried to fight this battle. “Alright, Jay,” he says, raising his hands pacifyingly, “my bad.”

“Wally’s real good at math,” says Artemis. “Next time, stop by at ours. He’ll help you figure it out.”

Jason looks kind of pleased, but also kind of confused. “Okay, maybe. The point isn’t my homework. You guys are supposed to get mad at _Dick_.”

“Yeah, Dick,” says La’gaan, “why didn’t you help him with the homework?” Jason’s head thunks against the stainless steel tabletop.

“Eh,” says Conner. “He’s mad at his dad. I get it. He still should’ve texted, but,” he shrugs, smile turning wicked, “I hear teenagers make irrational decisions sometimes.”

“I hear _three-year-olds_ shouldn’t be up this late,” says Dick, but there’s no bite to it.

The waitress stops by for their order. Kaldur isn’t really hungry, which is good because between Wally, Conner, Artemis and now Jason their funds are dangerously dwindling, and they can’t rely on Dick with the bat-credit-card anymore.

When the food arrives, he can only imagine what the waitress sees- Artemis unable to eat ‘cause one arm’s slung around Jason and one’s holding her boyfriend’s hand, La’gaan holding court, M’gann and Conner feeding each other bites of waffle over a resigned Dick, and himself drifting off in the corner. Kaldur, well, he just sees his family.

He makes sure to leave a tip with the rest of their scrounged money, though. He feels for the poor girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and of course, we all know what happens next.
> 
> what's that sound? it might be me laughing evilly. see y'all next update for some ANGST


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Artemis isn’t mad; she’s disappointed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -this is a short one. i like writing angst, but not harping on it, y'know? like there's only so many times you can write characters being upset at something. i hope you guys don't feel disappointed, i swear i'm not losing momentum or anything
> 
> -also, while this chapter deals with the effects of jason's death, it's more of a character study on artemis than anything else because i love her so fucking much!! in the same way, next chapter will be a character study on wally at the same time as dealing with tim's introduction
> 
> -ok enough semantics i hope you guys enjoy!!

Artemis isn’t mad; she’s disappointed. She’d really thought they were past this, is all.

Okay, fuck it, she’s mad.

Last time it’d been around six months, she thinks. Dick had gone, Jay had turned up, and they’d all worked to drag Dick back, kicking and screaming. The gap’s been much shorter, this time- two months and eleven days, but Dick had been _warned_ , they’ve all been warned- all disappearances need to be explained. No fucking excuses.

Two months and eleven days ago, four of them- her, Nightwing, Ms Martian, and Superboy- yeesh, that’s still awkward- had returned from a mission in space. _In space._ That’s still so fucking cool. They’d spilled out into the living quarters, thrilled to see everybody, but bone weary. Robin hadn’t been there, and just as Dick had been drifting off on a sofa, he’d gotten a call.

He’d squinted, sleep-heavy, at his phone. “It’s B. Must’ve been notified the second we got back. Jeez, he knows he’ll get a mission report once I’ve _slept_.” He’d risen, swaying with the effort. “Lemme just take this?”

Curled sleepily into her boyfriend, she hadn’t even acknowledged him. The tread of his feet, leaving the room, then silence, muted voices. About two minutes. Then the familiar _whoosh_ of a zeta. Then more nothing.

Two months and eleven days’ worth of _nothing_.

Nothing from Robin, either. She could _kill them._ It’s worse, this time, because Dick hasn’t even texted Wally. _Dick and Wally_ haven’t spoken. _Dick and Wally_ ¸ who, sometimes she idly feels she should be threatened by. It’s tearing him up, and, fuck, missing Jason is tearing her up as well. Sometimes she feels less like they’re boyfriend and girlfriend and more like they can’t leave because they’re all that’s holding each other together, that they’d pull away only to be followed by the gush of hot blood, the cold clammy hands of apathy.

It’s just- it’s stupid, the way loving Jason had crept up on her. He’d reminded her _so much_ of herself, rushing anger and then awkward, poky apologies, like a wounded animal. They were both non-meta, and Jason still found being around Dick awkward- it was natural that she’d look after him, train him as best she could.

One day in particular sticks in her mind.

Four months ago, late on a Tuesday evening, she’d been at Mount Justice. It was unusual, now she and Wally spend more and more time at their place. But it’d been a while since she’d had a mission and she’d been feeling it, that thrumming urge in her veins to land an arrow somewhere solid, to just fall into movement and not have to think.

So she’d stopped by the nearest zeta, the Cave providing an endless array of targets, although it’s surprisingly unsatisfying. She’s aware of how dangerous this kind of addiction can be, knows it’s something her predecessor, Roy, suffered from. God, recently Artemis has been acutely aware of how dangerous everything they do is, of how _precious_ everything she has is, in that needling kind of way that one day soon she’s not going to be able to ignore.  

Right as she’s lining up her next shot, the exertion leaking through in pants that throw off her aim, just slightly, the zeta sounds. She sees Robin’s form for an instant, but then he’s moving before he’s even fully materialised. She barely registers the anger on his face, the tears, his high cheekbones flushed with emotion, before he’s stormed off in the direction of the rooms. He doesn’t even acknowledge her.

Artemis inhales; exhales. She can fix this. There’s a lot in this life she can’t fix, but Jason trusts her. She can fix _him_.

She figures she can leave it for a few minutes, finishes her set, but it’s sloppy with worry. Cleaning her armour, her equipment, is usually calming, cathartic, but instead her mind is racing. Finally she finishes up, heads without hesitation or preamble towards Jason’s room. There’s no sound from within.

She knocks.

“ _Fuck off_!”

“Hey, now,” she says, gentle. He doesn’t respond for almost a minute but then the door clicks open, just a crack. Through it she can see his cheeks are red and blotchy.

“Thought you were Ms Martian,” he says, presumably by way of apology. “She saw me.”

“Naw,” says Artemis, tries to make it low and soothing and nurturing and all the things she naturally _isn’t_. She’d be a shit parent. “You’re too intimidating. Way out of her league.”

Jason wrinkles his nose, still shaky with sobs. “Her league is _Fishface_.” Artemis finds herself laughing.

She moves inside, shuts the door behind them, ignoring how trashed the room is. Clothes are strewn about, and a glass has been thrown at the wall. She takes Jason’s hand and pulls him around the broken glass, to the bed, and sits on it. He burrows into her side without hesitation.

“You gonna tell me what happened?” she asks. “’Cause you don’t have to- you never _have_ to.”

His voice is very small and quiet when he says, “It’s B,” and her chest tightens with anger.

Artemis would be a shit parent, yeah, but, recently, Batman is worse. There’s no question to it. She could count the number of times she’s heard him interact with Jason on one hand, but he’s never once had anything good to say. It won’t be like that all the time- he seemed alright with Dick- but it’s enough to raise a fierce anger in her. It’s awful ‘cause there’s nothing she can do about it, nothing at all.

“It’s just,” he says, voice muffled where he’s pressed into her side. “He still doesn’t trust me? It feels like? Every single fuckin’ time it’s ‘ _you didn’t need to hit that hard, Robin’_ , or ‘ _I expect more, Robin_ ’, and I try so _fucking hard-_ ” his voice breaks, and her heart along with it.

“I try so hard, and he doesn’t _care_ , and then I get so _angry_ and everything just gets _worse-_ ”

He’s hyperventilating, his breath sticking ugly on the still air. She rubs soothing patterns into his back until he continues.

“And tonight, _tonight_ , there was- this dealer we’d been tracking for a while, doing _awful awful_ things-”

He’s just a kid. He’s fourteen- just a fucking kid.

“Awful things to these girls, and I caught up with him- B was dealing with something. I- he was on the balcony, and I was so angry, but I would _never, I would never-_ ”

“Hey, baby,” she whispers. “I know, I know, I promise.”

He shakes against her. “I wouldn’t. But he fell. And B thinks I’d do that. I kept _telling_ him, I _did_ , but he didn’t listen, could _see it,_ in his eyes. I'm benched for- I don’t even know. _Fuck_.”

She hugs him tight like it’ll protect him from anything, anything at all.

“He thinks I'm a killer, A.”

“He doesn’t,” she whispers, and it sounds flat even to her. “He loves you. We love you.”

Artemis can feel every little mechanical step of him pulling away, putting himself back together. He sits quiet and empty on the bed as she picks up the glass, comes back and strokes his hair. He’s getting too big for this, they both know.

“Does he know you’re here, little bird?”

 His voice is still shaky but there’re new undercurrents to it now, bitter and cold. “I didn’t tell him. He’ll know.”

“It’s late,” she says, so out of her depth. “You could come with me. To my and Wally’s place.”

He smiles, empty and sharp like she’s just saying it to be nice. “Nah. Should get back to Gotham. Places to go, paedophiles to maim, apparently.”

Oh, Artemis. You can’t fix this. You can’t fix this at all.

She walks with him to the zeta and can’t think of a single goddamn thing to say.

They see each other twice more, before she goes on that space mission, and there’s a hazy kind of apology in his eyes, but _he_ doesn’t need to apologise to anyone. They never manage to hold any kind of a conversation before duty calls. And now-

Now it’s been two months and eleven days, and Artemis can’t stop thinking about him.

Beside her, in the darkness, Wally rolls over, blinking at her.

“You think so loud, babe,”

She huffs a little breath, self-depreciating. Wally waits for her to offer any kind of explanation, and when none is forthcoming, jumps to the obvious conclusions.

“They’ll turn up. They always do.”

“B’s still active in Gotham, but neither Robin nor Nightwing have been sighted for _ages_. I'm- I'm scared, Wal. It feels like I'm scared all the time.”

He kisses the base of her neck, then her shoulder blades- it’s a comforting gesture, not a sexual one. “Maybe we need a break.”

She stiffens against him, suddenly terrified. “No, not from each other, I don’t mean-” and even as he babbles, she breathes a sigh of relief, relaxes again. She can do this. Her coping mechanisms are fine.

“I meant,” he continues, softer, “from the life. From all the danger. Lately, all I can think about is how much I’ve got to lose, now.” Oh. Yeah, that’s- that’s it.

“But how am I supposed to stop myself from losing anything if I'm not fighting?” Then her mind says _well you couldn’t save Robin, could you?_ and she flinches with it. Wally apparently understands where it comes from, mutters, “if anything’s happened to them, it isn’t your fault,” against her spine.

“Yeah,” she says, “I know. Come on, babe, let’s go to sleep. We’ll drop by Mount Justice in the morning, see if there’ve been any updates.”

“Okay, Artemis.” He pauses. “Love you.”

She smiles, tired. “Love you too.”

\-----

“There have not,” Kaldur says, impossibly weary, “been any updates.”

She smiles at him, sympathetic, like it doesn’t hurt her at all. She’s getting good at pretending.

“What, and we’re not even going to draw straws to see who gets to ask Batman again? For old times’ sake?”

Garfield, clinging to M’gann’s leg, shudders. “No _thanks_. We barely see him anymore and when we do he’s so _scary_. He glared at me for interrupting him the other day and I wanted to _die_.”

Artemis grins at him, ruffles his hair. He’s so _little_. If he’d arrived after Jason’s disappearance, she might not have been able to cope, but they’ve had him for a while now. He’s such a sweetheart, the ache in her gut wanes for a second.

“Ehh, that’s like an initiation ritual around here,” says Wally, lazily, stretching catlike.

“And no mission updates?”

“Not with the Bat hardly around to give them to us. Apparently, Justice League bureaucracy is… suffering as well. Whatever’s going on, it’s bigger than us.”

There’s a certain conclusion that dances around Artemis’s consciousness, to the beat of a dull, inevitable funeral knell, but she swats it away. She can’t think about that.

Instead, she looks around. Evidence of the team’s lethargy is spread out everywhere, months spent with little to do. Every surface is gleaming- M’gann stress-cleans sometimes- but covered in clutter, old souvenirs. La’gaan’s missing- back in Atlantis, for a bit, Artemis thinks- but Conner, M’gann, and Kaldur still live here, and Gar now. Artemis thinks she can see cabin fever in the stress lines around their eyes and it makes her antsy. She wants to find an excuse to leave, but it feels so _rude_ \- these are her friends. Besides, Wally is absorbed, talking to Gar.

M’gann’s been watching her very closely. She smiles, now, sad, comes closer.

“It’s hard without them, right?”

Artemis sighs. She’s not entirely sure she wants to talk about it. “Right. _And_ your boyfriend’s on holiday. How do you manage that?”

M’gann’s still smiling. “Your people have a proverb, right? _This too shall pass_. I’ve been holding onto that. Um, really tight.”

She huffs out a laugh. “You should get a tattoo. Then you’d really be one of the locals.”

M’gann makes her forehead bubble and the words appear there. Artemis gives her a laugh, just to be polite, but it occurs to her for the first time that maybe she’s grown up, a little, and the shapeshifting gags just don’t land like they used to. _Then_ she remembers that Martians mature much slower than humans, that mentally M’gann is pretty much the same age as she was when they first met. Unexpected, pure sadness crests over her in a wave, so deep she sees it in M’gann’s eyes, too.

“Sorry,” she manages. “I just need some space.”

She stumbles out onto the beach and chokes down the tears by pure force of will. Refuses to cry when she doesn’t even know what she’s mourning.

Slowly, she uncurls, collapses flat on her back on the sand. The sun beats down warm upon her and she tries to feel nothing but sensation- the rushing sound of wind and wave, the press of hot sand on her bare arms.

She’s interrupted after a few minutes by footsteps- Wally’s footsteps. Great. M’gann probably talked to him. She feels him sit down next to her and doesn’t open her eyes.

“Artemis,” he says, so gentle, so compassionate, she’s almost sick with how little and petty she is beside him. “Artemis, after what Megan said just happened… look, I’ve been thinking a lot, and- don’t get mad?”

“Go on,” she murmurs, “lay it on me.”

He swallows. “Arty, I think you’re depressed.”

She sits bolt upright. _What_. He raises his hands, pacifying. “Hear me out. Ever since Robin disappeared, but for a long time, really… sometimes you just feel so _empty_. Like you’re only pretending to feel anything for _my_ sake. I know you think I don’t notice, but… I do.”

Her breath catches at her throat. She’s crying- why is she crying?

“I- I don’t know how to help you, or if I'm even right. But- please. I want you to talk to someone, if you’re up for it.”

Out of everything she might’ve expected, she has _zero_ plan for this. It’s barely her doing the moving when she nods her head.

“Okay,” Wally says, like he’s trying to convince himself of something. “Okay.”

They sit there, silent, for what feels like an eternity. Eventually Wally curses and pulls out his phone, scowls at it. “I really wasn’t going to do this. I promised myself.”

Some part of Artemis is interested, and that part says, “what?” on autopilot. Most of her just craves absolute nothingness, to lie on this sand until it swallows her up.

Wally says, “I have a tracker in Dick’s phone,” in a rush, all at once like it’s a confession. Artemis finds the energy all of a sudden to twist, sit up and stare at him. Bits of her brain she hasn’t needed in a while buzz into life. Under her gaze, he crumples. “I installed it after last time. Because it made me think what if something horrible does happen to him, one day? It’s just for emergencies- not even this kind of emergency. But I can’t do nothing, anymore, babe, I just can’t.”

She stares at him, for a second, then kisses him, quick, like she hasn’t in a while. “Okay then,” she says, voice scratchy. “Do it.”

He jabs furiously at the screen. It seems to take an age to load. Then-

“Oh.” He squints. “Did not expect that.”

“What?” She tries to get a look at the screen; the sun’s too bright. “Where is he?”

“He’s with _Bruce_. At the manor, at least.”

She blinks. “He hates Bruce. He legit moved cities to get away from him.”

“I dunno what to tell you. At least he’s safe?”

And there it is, that old, familiar anger, flaring up in her, more vivid than anything she’s felt in- in a while. She uses it, lets it burn, drive her to her feet. She pulls Wally up after her.

“Not after I'm through with him,” she growls, uneven. “Come on.”

\-----

It’s only taken them about twenty minutes to get here, with the zeta, not nearly enough time to cool the rage bubbling in Artemis’ gut. She’s been in the Manor once before, although she didn’t come through this entrance. Wally, by contrast, seems much more familiar, and he greets the silver-haired man who opens the door with a blinding smile.

“How- how did you get past the security- oh. Forgive me. I did not recognise you, Mr West.”

“Hi, Alfie.”

Oh, wow. Artemis does _not_ have time for this.

“You need to let us in. Sir. We know Dick is here. We need to see him and Jason. Please.”

The flinch is almost imperceptible, but it is there. Huh. Artemis is going to get to the bottom of this. She _will_.

That age-old conclusion looms in the corner of her vision. She will not look at it. She will not think about it. She will _not_.

After regarding her for a few seconds with an expression bordering on _contempt_ , the man shrugs, lightly, the polite butler veneer settling over his features again. She can’t make herself care.  “By all means, come inside. Dick could use the visitors. Shoes off, please. He’ll be in the library.”

 _Dick has never voluntarily entered a library in the time I have known him,_ Artemis doesn’t say. With only socks on her feet, she feels achingly vulnerable. Wally trails after her, looking like he regrets this idea more and more each second. When they find the library, Artemis assumes the butler must’ve been mistaken- there’s no trace of the friendly buzz Dick brings to a room. And yet, Wally coughs, subtly, and a worn, pale face twists to look at them, instinct flaring like a wild, frightened bird.

Dick’s eyes are deeply shadowed, the hood of his red jacket up. There’s a lethargy to him she’s never known. He doesn’t look like _Dick_.

He looks like the face she’s seen in the mirror for two months and eleven- _twelve_ days.

“Hey,” he starts, shaky, “hi guys! I wasn’t, uh, expecting-”

Wally takes a step back, ashen, as Dick cuts himself off. Apparently, he’s just got nothing to say.

He looks so fucking small. The dots Artemis refuses to connect dance mercilessly in front of her, in the fresh lines on his face. They aren’t happy lines.

“Where’s Jason,” she says, mouth numb and heart stuttering.

In front of her, Dick crumples like wet paper, and she knows, then. And all of a sudden, there’s nothing to be said.

The world is very silent and very big. Her heart turns to steel; her lungs fill all the way up with feathers.

“Oh, Dick,” says Wally, so goddamn tender. She thinks that they’re hugging, that Dick is sobbing into Wally’s shoulder, but she can’t open her eyes.

 _Oh,_ she thinks, _this was probably Jason’s favourite room_.

The tears come, then, and they don’t stop for a good long while.

\-----

She is the last one there.

This isn’t because she loved him the most; Dick will probably have been here past sunset for two months straight. But tonight, Dick and Wally supported each other, leant on each other back up to the house, and left her, back against cold marble, gazing into the sky.

She thinks of a warehouse, of blood soaked into foreign soil. She’ll look at the stars for the both of them, tonight.

Somewhere behind her Jason says, “and I try so _fucking hard-_ ” but of course, he isn’t really there.

“Hey, little bird,” she says. “I don’t know what I'm gonna do without you.”

He doesn’t reply. Maybe he doesn’t know, either.

“Wally says I'm depressed. I think he’s probably right. So. I’ll probably do something about that. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right?”

Her hand finds Jason’s name carved into the stone. _Beloved son and brother_.

“Dick says he wants to commemorate you. Put up a statue, maybe, somewhere all the heroes can pay their respects. I don’t know, kid. Sounds like asking for trouble to me.”

She wonders how that phone call went down, the one she’d almost overheard. Two minutes, then the sound of a zeta. A world torn apart, all at once.

“I'm,” her voice cracks. “I'm really gonna miss you. Is all.”

She can’t help it; she thinks of all the way down, six feet under. How rotten is he, after two months? Thinks about the kind of damage you can’t make pretty for a viewing, about a broken jaw, a full set of cracked ribs, about the sound a crowbar makes, on blood-slick flesh, again, and again, and again.

She promptly rolls over, is sick all over the lawn.

“Huh,” she says, then stands up, unsteady, to go inside. An unseen hand on her shoulder stops her. There’s something left to be said. She pauses, awkwardly, turns back to face the low grave.

“I.” She swallows. “I don’t think I can do this anymore. The whole hero thing. I'm tapping out.”

Jason doesn’t reply. When she turns, again, he doesn’t stop her a second time.

She drags her feet back to the heat and warmth of the living.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- do you hate me yet? i kinda hate me
> 
> anyways thank y'all SO MUCH for reading!! drop a comment if you enjoyed, i absolutely love hearing you guys' thoughts. like the comments i got last time around basically spurred me to finish the fic, i can't thank you guys enough xxx
> 
> love y’all, see you next week!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It just isn’t sitting right, the idea that somehow an ending of sorts has occurred while he wasn’t paying attention. Wally- Wally owes a lot to the Team, to each person on it, and what- it’s just over? Not even a farewell smile or handshake, just a certain chill to the air and a home that isn’t his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -hi, my lovely readers!! this chapter deals with the introduction of tim drake as robin. but, k8, where's tim in this story? hmm, what a good question.

God, the walls of this place are tight around him.

It’s like suffocating, being here, now, under the promised crush of tonnes of volcanic rock. The dull, grey metal, the little trophy room, the rows of scratched-up memories from every single one of their little conquests- it sucks the air right out of Wally’s lungs. But the sad little smile Kaldur gives him, once he’s spotted lurking unannounced, uncomfortable with the press of his costumed body against the tight air- _that’s_ claustrophobic, more than anything else here.

“Kid Flash,” he says, and you wouldn’t know any time has passed since that first, rose-tinted year. Kaldur’s a constant; he’ll always be here. Wally’s very aware that he’s grown up, but only recently has he come to realise that he’s grown _away_. Away from the mountain and the Team, yeah, but. Away from its members, too. “It’s been a while.”

“Sure has,” he says, noncommittal. “Sorry. Me and Arty have been busy with the apartment, and college, and stuff.”

Kaldur raises an eyebrow. “I'm very happy for the both of you.” Wally wants to scream _could’ve fooled me!_ But none of this awful, uncomfortable feeling is Kaldur’s fault, and the guy isn’t lying, either. There’s a stretch of silence where Aqualad expects Wally to tell him _why_ he’s here, but fuck that, Wally’s not entirely sure, either. Both him and Artemis still do missions, when it’s specifically requested of them, but. Priorities change. It’s only natural. This place certainly isn’t a second home, like it used to be, and they’re never here unless the mission demands it.

And yeah, they’d had a family here, and they lose more of that every day. But he thinks of Artemis, sleepy in his shirt, in _their_ home, and most importantly _safe_. Not suffering, not grieving. Still seeing a therapist every other week, still bringing flowers to Jason’s grave on the regular, but _intact_.

Not many superheroes get so lucky. Whatever they may have lost, here, no matter how heavy the air feels against Wally’s skin, it is worth it. It will always be worth it.

So: instead of answering Kaldur’s unasked question he casts around for the most dramatic, most distracting topic he can find. “How’s Roy been doing?”

Kaldur visibly flinches, and Wally feels a little cruel. “He’s… things aren’t good. He’s still relentless in his search for the original, still hanging around with a- a _dangerous_ class of people.” And he’s still not accepting help from the Team, Wally infers. Damn.

Kaldur moves away, body language, after all this time, like he’s expecting to be followed. An eternity between them and it’s still Team Leader Aqualad and Kid Flash, Class Clown. Kaldur’s pulling up a status screen next to the zeta teleporters, a perpetually scowling, rotating image of Roy Harper appearing next to chunks of information.

“Here,” Kaldur says, voice dark. “Stats from the last time he used this teleporter- he’s lost almost thirty pounds. Not looking good.”

“No,” Wally agrees, because what else can you say to that, really? “Wait, the teleporter records stats now? Since when?”

Kaldur furrows his brow, looks confused for a tiny fraction of time. ”Since- since the last system update, I suppose. I never asked.”

Boring, paranoid Wally, grew up all wrong. Whatever, he’s used to it. Except he’s only ever this wary here, around the fringes of his old life, like if he’s not careful he’ll get sucked right back in. He pulls himself together, tries to make an effort. “What about the others? How’s everybody doin’?”

Kaldur looks at him like he’s waiting for him to get to the point, but obliges anyway. “Dick’s return to the team is working out well, and he’s assuming a more managerial position. Stepping up.” The ‘ _like you’re not_ ’ is only implied, but Wally hears it, clear as day, anyway. “La’gaan is back from Atlantis, although he seems largely unchanged by his time there. Gar and M’gann are close- they’re good for each other. Conner is Conner. We have a new recruit- a new Blue Beetle, actually.”

“I heard what happened to the old one,” Wally says, overwhelmed by this barrage of information about people he barely connects with himself, anymore. “Just another casualty, I guess.”

Kaldur inclines his head. “He will not be forgotten. We’ve established a- a memorial garden, of sorts, at the bottom floor. To honour his sacrifice, and… others like it.”

Wally can’t know for sure, but he thinks his face has gone very pale, his posture stiffening. Kaldur’s patience, it appears, finally runs out. “What are you doing here, Kid Flash?”

He stands, considering, for maybe a quarter of a second, although it feels like eternity. Eventually, unable to come up with a satisfactory answer, he leaves without giving one, blurring to the teleporter without looking Kaldur in the eye.

He’s not deflecting. It’s just… whatever.

\-----

He’s back within two weeks. It just isn’t sitting right, the idea that somehow an ending of sorts has occurred while he wasn’t paying attention. He- he owes a lot to the Team, to each person on it, and what- it’s just over? Not even a farewell smile or handshake, just a certain chill to the air and a home that isn’t his own. It twists at his stomach.

As he zetas through he thinks back to the last time he was here, brings up the statistics the zeta recorded about him.

_Wally West//Kid Flash_

_Designation: B03_

_Human, 19 years, 8 months_

_5’10, 155lbs_

_Status: pending review_

Oh, he’s pending now? No longer even active? _Wonderful_.

It’s- he should be fine with this. He’s quitting, they _both_ are. It’s just… this snuck up on him, somehow. He doesn’t even remember how to use the fucking interface system, apparently- the shutdown button isn’t where he thought it was and the new design is sleeker. It’s more efficient, yes, but what, are you supposed to intuit your way out of it? He bet Dick designed this, so he’ll have the World’s Greatest Detective to thank, one way or another.

He gets the damned screen to go away, finally, shoves his hands in his pockets. Can’t shake the feeling of watchful eyes, like the team are lurking just out of sight, thinking _what is he doing here_?

Wally takes the quickest route to the bottom floor- less than a second. Still got it.

And- yeah, Kaldur wasn’t lying. He shouldn’t be surprised, but seeing them standing there, holograms flickering in the dull light- it takes something out of him, is all.

He never had much to do with Blue Beetle before- well, before. But he’d just been a presence, y’know? Another fixed point just like Batman or Supes or, well, that’s just it, isn’t it? He hadn’t been fixed. None of them are. One day this room will be lined with heroes, in their ranks, and there won’t be a grey hair among them, nor a lined face. Somehow this business always cycles around back to endings, not like when the Team was first formed and the world seemed brand new.

And then- well. Jason.

He’s much more straight-backed in the hologram than Wally ever saw him in real life, and there’s something cold to the set of his jaw. Robin hadn’t been cold- he was unlike the Bat in that way. He’d been messy and fiery and _everything_.

He’s in a better place now, and it’s certainly nothing like here. Down here is dingey and cool and filled with the sounds of water slapping against bare rock. It ain’t honourable, or heroic, and maybe there’s poetry in that. This business isn’t guts and glory so much as just _guts_ , and for those it proves too much for there’s no moment of silence, no international mourning, there’s just- this. Your image in the shitty basement of a squad of dumbass teenage superheroes.

He wonders what would’ve happened if he’d said to Jason, that very first day, _go home, kid. There’re other people to save the world_.

On impulse, he whirls a hand through hologram-Jason’s knee. The light disperses prettily, flickering, then re-establishes itself.

“Huh,” says a voice from behind him. “Last time I tried that the little fucker shocked me.”

He does it again, for science, the other leg this time, but nothing. “Hey, Conner,” he replies, not turning around. “He’d probably think that was funny.”

“Yeah, he really would.” Conner’s voice is very soft, overwhelmed with memories of the kid, or trying to tiptoe around Wally- he’s not sure. He turns and watches as Conner reaches Kord’s memorial, stretches out a hand, and sure enough, sparks fly.

“Huh. Maybe the wiring’s faulty in that one. Rather you than me- ‘snot like you can _feel_ it.”

Conner makes an annoyed face at him. “It’s still rude.”

“You’re rude.” A beat. “How’ve you been, man?”

Conner looks at him. “You mean Kaldur didn’t fill you in when you dropped by?”

“Look, man, don’t get pissy-” Conner waves a hand, his posture relaxing.

“Nah. Didn’t mean it, just- on edge, I guess. Things are good. The new kid is cool. But also weird.”

Wally pulls a face. “Weird how?”

“Not _your_ type of weird. Talks a lot about _terminating_ people. Usually, uh, us.”

“Huh. Fun.”

“Yeah.” Another beat. Man, this has no right to be as hard as it is. They’re just _talking_. He closes his eyes, slumps back against the pedestal. Suddenly the whole weight of the world is on his shoulders.

“There’s info coming in about a dirty lab in Venezuela. If that would help you get through whatever shit you’re in, you’re welcome to come. But if not…”

_Then you need to find some other way of working through your issues, dude, ‘cause this is getting old._ Wally gets it.

“What, not a straight up mission?” he asks, instead of having to think of an answer. “Batman getting lazy?”

Conner’s brows furrow. “I, uh. I'm not sure. Info’s been coming through from the JL servers recently- I never really questioned it. It’s Kaldur’s thing,” he says defensively, and then “it seems official,” even more so.

When it becomes apparent Wally’s not going to give him any sort of an answer, Conner gives in, walks away. The both of them haven’t ever been the best at chatting- that pod didn’t do Conner’s social skills any favours and _all_ conversation is too slow for Wally. This time, though, it’s actually because he’s entirely focused on that piercing feeling of being watched, again, as if through white lenses.

\-----

What’s worse is: Dick shows up a half-hour later, so the feeling isn’t even his fault. It’s just Wally’s paranoia. For the millionth time he wonders if the scars from the superhero gig, mental and physical, are just part of him now. If he’ll ever be able to walk down a street without checking every alleyway, just in case.

It’s not a very Kid Flash thing to think, and he dismisses it from his mind.

Dickie’s leaning against the cavern wall awkwardly, like his ribs are all kinds of fucked up, _again_. Wally feels the usual pinpricks of guilt, seeing a friend in pain, but it’s not like it is with the rest of the team, with Artemis. It doesn’t truly feel like it’s his fault, like he should’ve been there to help. They’ve known each other for forever, have had each other’s backs just as long. Wally knows Nightwing can look after himself, knows Nightwing expects the same of him. There’s no pressure between them, none of Dick’s weight on his shoulders, and it’s _good_. It’s familiar and refreshing all at once.

He smiles, and he doesn’t have to fake it, this time. “Boy Wonder. It’s been a minute.”

“Sure has,” Dick says, wincing as he moves into the light.

“You weren’t trying to sneak up on me, were you, now?” Dick makes big innocent eyes at him.

“Who, me?” He bites down on his lip, hisses, hand going to his chest. “Hnngh. Maybe I need the practice.”

“Jesus, Dickie, take a minute. I'm pretty sure you shouldn’t be walking on that.”

Dick blinks at him. “Is this Wally West telling me to go slow? I'm gonna need you to go on record.”

“You’re an asshole. And deflecting.”

“Yeah, well, my best friend wouldn’t come see me in my room and I was getting all _lonely_.” He’s right by Wally, now, in front of Jason’s hologram, because Dick Grayson has two missions in life and they’re to fight crime and invade personal space, both as obnoxiously as possible. And, y’know, get laid. But that technically falls under the last thing. Besides, Wally doesn’t think about it. 

Didn’t think about it all those times Zatanna had emerged from his room, pink and giggling. Didn’t think about it when he was introduced to Batgirl, could only register the long hot line of Dick’s gaze on her. _Definitely_ didn’t think about it when Dick had stumbled home after a weekend ‘stakeout’ with Roy, obscene with slick-red bruises and walking funny. These events don’t seem to mean much to Dick, so why should they mean anything to Wally?

He also doesn’t think about it ‘cause he’s, y’know. A good boyfriend. And Artemis needs him, and he loves her. It only needs to be that simple.

Dick’s close. Close enough for Wally to see the strain around his eyes, the furrow at his brow, register the heat of his breath. It usually doesn’t matter the distance between them, though, since Wally’s focus has a way of narrowing everything down to just the two of them. It’s ‘cause he’s safe- a _real_ constant, not like any of the others. Wally prefers to leave it at that.

“How’d you get hurt?”

Dick pulls a face, the moment disintegrating. “Maybe I'm just not as young as I used to be. Came up against Mr Freeze alone. Ice is really, really slippery. And then, y’know. A couple of his guys kicked the shit outta me.”

Wally winces. “You might be old, but you ain’t wise, _pal_. Don’t you pretend like you’re growing up on me.”

“Nah, you’ve got the growing up thing covered, right?.”

He flushes, hand going up to rub the back of his neck. “Look, I know things are different now, and weird-”

Dick raises a hand. “Wasn’t trying to guilt trip you, dude.” His eyes are incredibly blue. “It’s strange to think about, though. Back when we first started this team… I don’t know. I really thought we’d be here forever.”

Wally doesn’t know what to say. He’d thought so too. He turns and regards Jason’s figure, looming over them.

“I guess life doesn’t come out the way you planned it,” he says, heart a little heavy. Dick’s looking at Jason, too, although he was purposely turned away, before.

“Yeah,” he says, lamely, eyes a little lost. “It’s not like things aren’t good. Hell, it’s not like I'm not _lucky_. But everything used to be so simple, and now it just isn’t.”

Wally registers movement, near the ceiling, through Jason. God, please don’t let there be bats in here. The furry kind, anyway.

“What about B?” he asks. “Are things simple with him?”

Dick laughs, openly, a little bitter. “Good one. He’s still the same angsty bastard.” His voice picks up. “There’s actually this-” but then he cuts himself off again.

“Dude?”

“Sorry. I, uh, can’t. We’re trying not to make it public knowledge- it’s need-to-know. And you’re, uh, pending.”

Wally tears his eyes from Robin to stare at Dick, who’s bright red. “You’re fucking with me?”

He winces. “Sorry.”

Wally can feel a smile in his voice, despite anything. “Un-fucking-believable. This is how it’s gonna be for the rest of my life, right?”

Dick suddenly meets his eyes from where he’s been avoiding them like a _coward_. He’s suddenly so fucking earnest, so _close_. “It’s worth it, though, right? What you’re building? It makes you happy?”

Wally feels a sudden, awful wave of heartache. Wants to say _you make me happy, too_ , but that’s not an answer. Wants to say _it’s the right thing to do_ \- not an answer, either.

Oh, for- he’s supposed to be _over this_. “Yeah,” he says, mouth dry, “it makes me happy.”

Dick gives him a smile. There’s a distance in his eyes that wasn’t there before. “How’re you doing, man?” he says, desperate for this not to be another goodbye. “With- with everything.”

Dick’s eyes slide closed. He looks awful tired. “I'm fine, dude. Things with B are still hard. I still- I still miss him.” His gaze casts up to Jason’s face, where it glows expressionless. “It creeps up on me, y’know? Some days there are just gaps where he’s- meant to be. But I'm coping fine. It’s what we do, right? We cope.”

There’s an sick truth to that, and it twists nauseous in the pit of Wally’s stomach.

“You’re always welcome, dude, you know that? With me and Artemis. There’s always space for you.”

Dick gives him another grin. This one doesn’t reach his eyes, and it occurs to Wally that Dick thinks he’s _lying_. The watching feeling is back, too, prickling on his exposed neck. Maybe he is going crazy.

Maybe not, though.

\-----

He’s in Jason’s room. He has a suspicion, kind of, and he needs to know.

It’s- the place has been cleaned, since the last time the kid ever stayed in it. There are no clothes strewn on the floor; the bed is made. But those same clothes are tucked away, neat, in the closet, not packed up. Jason’s posters are still on the walls. Like a shrine. It makes Wally feel sick, right down to his stomach- he’s so glad Artemis isn’t here to see it. He hasn’t been to Mount Justice for nearly a week but he had a free period, and Kid Flash can get a lot done in two hours.

It takes him barely two seconds to find what he’s looking for- the pillows are compressed, like somebody’s been sitting there, and there’s an energy bar wrapper in the bin. It puzzles Wally, because if there is an intruder in the mountain, one who apparently cares enough about Jason to upgrade his hologram, why would they so carefully leave an imprint on his space? This guy is very, very careful, and to treat Jason’s monument almost reverentially while trying to stake some claim to Robin’s room? There’s an odd dichotomy there, a sort of-

_Oh_.

Man. He’s been BFF’s with the kid trained by the World’s Greatest Detective since god-knows-when, has a brain that works a helluva lot faster than the next person, and this particular mystery has taken him at least a month.

He’d thought the oddness to the space had been all him, all _his_ awkwardness, but. The idea of an infiltrator is actually sort of comforting, now. Especially when-

“Hey,” he says, stilted in the quiet room. But there’s a tense movement to the space, a pressure emanating from the air-vent he’d become used to back when Dick was small enough to seamlessly fit places like that. “It’s okay.”

Then he says, “Robin,” and it doesn’t stick in his mouth, like he’d thought it would.

There’s barely a whisper as the kid removes the vent cover, slides out. He’s _tiny_ , in a way that steals the breath from Wally’s lungs. He gets, now, why the rest of the team have had no idea, even M’gann. She usually has to be looking for something, unless a person is projecting, and there’s nothing in this kid that’s projective, that’s perceivable. He’s subtle like Wally never would’ve noticed without superhuman instinct and a lifetime’s experience of Robin.

“I _thought_ you were onto me,” says the kid, small and quiet and uptown Gotham. He’s nothing like Jason _or_ Dick, and it bowls Wally over. “I was stupid.”

“Kid,” he says, “I don’t know anything about you, but I'm pretty sure you’re not stupid.”

The boy’s- _Robin’s-_ gauntleted hands twist in front of him, like he’s spent so long in the shadows he doesn’t know what to do with the attention. “I’ll go,” he says, “but please don’t tell Batman. Sir.”

Wally blinks, says _fuck it, sorry, Jason_ , and sits on the bed, pats the space next to him. “He doesn’t know you’re here,” he says, and it isn’t a question.

Robin hesitates, then moves, quiet and fluid, to sit beside him. “No. He doesn’t trust me, really. But he’s been away during the day, a lot, and,” he flushes, “I just wanted to see what you guys were like. I guess.”

He has never seen anybody so desperately in need of a hug as this kid. If, before today, anybody had mentioned even the _idea_ of there being a third Robin, after Jason, he would’ve been revolted. But this kid- it’s not like that. Somehow, it just isn’t. “If he didn’t trust you, you wouldn’t be Robin. Seriously, kid.”

Robin blinks at him. “No, I mean- I know. But I'm not Robin, not really. I'm barely patrolling yet.”

Wally has to ask. “You better forgive me,” he says, “but I’ve been living under the impression that there would never _be_ another Robin.”

The kid doesn’t flinch, although Wally expected him too. “Me too. Really. But there _needs_ to be one. I tried to convince Dick, but, well,” Wally gives him a sympathetic smile, shows him he knows how that would’ve went down, “yeah. And then I wouldn’t let it go, and then,” he glances down, “this.”

“You’re fighting for it,” he says, impressed. The idea of anybody fighting the Bat to be his _ally_ is- yeah. But he doesn’t doubt this kid, not for a second.

“Yeah,” says the kid, tiny and folded in on himself. “But if he finds out I'm here he’ll probably never trust me again. And I just wanted to _look_.”

“And upgrade all of our security systems. And send us new cases anonymously. And fix Jason’s hologram, what, to have someone to talk to? Anything else?”

Robin flushes. “I had some time on my hands. Your filing system is a little more streamlined, now. And, uh, I had to read your files to do that, so there’s a few cold cases that I-”

Wally can’t help it. He throws back his head and laughs. Feels more like Kid Flash, Class Clown, than he has in a while, actually. “C’mon, kid. I’ll introduce you.”

Robin does flinch back, then. “They can’t know!”

“They’re good people. C’mon- I'm aware this is a stupid thing to ask a Bat, but trust me, yeah?”

Two minutes later he has a hand around Robin’s slim wrist, is dragging him towards the living area. Kaldur is curled up with a book, La’gaan and M’gann are curled up with each other, Gar is napping as a monkey on the couch, Conner is doing something angry and hopefully food-related with a knife in the kitchen. As one, they turn to look at him, then do a glorious double-take.

“Hey guys!” he says, buzzing with some of his old energy. “Check out our illegal Robin!”

Kaldur’s eyes go wide. “Illegal? What- when did you _get here_?”

Gar asks, sleepily, “What, did you pirate him? ‘Cause I think Batman has a copyright.”

“No _way_ ,” says Conner.

Robin shuffles his feet, turns to Kaldur, as if he needs to be able to actually help someone out to cope, right now. “I, uh. I used Batman’s authorisation to add myself to Robin’s zeta profile. Then I hacked the security cameras until the coast was clear, and since then I’ve been using the vents.”

M’gann’s mouth falls open. “ _Batman_ doesn’t know you’re here?”

“Vents?” asked La’gaan, sounding queasy.

Wally grins. “The brand-new Boy Wonder hasn’t been crash-tested yet, but we get an advanced screening. ‘Cause he’s a little rebel.” Robin flushes red below the domino, and Wally feels bizarrely happy, somehow separate from himself.

But Gar’s eyes are bright and awed, and Conner seems genuinely interested, in a non-murderous way, and M’gann looks on the verge of adopting another kid, so. Wally reckons he’ll do just fine.

\-----

Artemis’ stare is blank, but her hands are trembling, a little. They’re on a park bench, very public, which was very possibly Wally’s strategic choice to keep her from yelling at him.

“A new Robin, huh?” she says, voice low. “And you’re only telling me this now, _why_?”

He sighs, grips her hand harder to keep her from pulling away. “I only found out a few days ago-”

“Then that’s a few days too _many_. And you’ve been going back to the cave for weeks? If you didn’t want to quit you could’ve just _talked to me_ about it!” This time he lets her pull her hand away, cross her arms. It’s a little too vulnerable to look like much else but her hugging herself, grasping for some comfort he evidently can’t provide.

“Babe, it’s not that I don’t want to. I was just trying to _deal_ , y’know? It’s a lot to give up all at once.”

Her eyes are fiery. “It isn’t all at once. We’ve been edging out for _months_. I don’t understand you, Wally West.”

She’s making him face truths he hasn’t let himself look at for a while. She’s right, of course, about all of it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t mean that he doesn’t instinctively shift to a defensive stance.

“Okay, I know you’re angry that B gave Robin away-”

“Oh, _fuck you_. Of course I am, but that’s _not_ why I'm mad at you. I'm not a child, you don’t need to protect me from _shit_.” He winces. Doesn’t know how to tell her that that’s all he knows how to do, that he’s spent a lifetime shielding others from the messy parts of the world around them, and he doesn’t know how to stop.

He wants to tell her she’s right. Wants to tell her she isn’t. Wants to apologise, isn’t sure what for. Unbidden, an image of Dick floats into his mind, staring lost up at Jason’s hologram. He scrubs a weary hand over his eyes. “I know. I'm sorry. I guess- I was talking to Dick, and the way he puts it, it’s like. Everything used to be so easy and simple, and now it’s just- not. And you miss the easiness, you miss when things weren’t complicated, even if you don’t want that life anymore.”

Her expression softens, just a touch. “Oh, well, if _Dick_ says so…” He huffs a laugh. “Urgh, okay. It’s hard- it’s hard for me too, yeah? So just don’t keep me in the dark on shit like this. We’re a _team_.”

The sigh he breathes is relieved and a little choked. Not forgiven, then, but on his way.

“Y’know,” he offers, after a beat, “I'm probably going back there on the weekend. See how the new kid is doing, and all. You could come meet him.”

To her credit, she considers it, which is more than he was expecting. “I don’t think so, Wal. I never need to see another kid in that fucking costume.”

After a minute, she reaches for his hand again, and they sit on the cold bench and watch the sun go down.

\-----

Dick’s Robin, just like Dick now, was a sprawler. He’d had no regard for personal space, even back then, although he’d certainly been a lot smaller, so you minded less. Jason’d spent most of his time curled up into a messy tangle of Robin, oftentimes clutching a book. This Robin is nothing like either of them. He sits neatly folded up, like he’s trying to make himself less intrusive, although Wally thinks he might just be the least intrusive person he’s ever met.

Beast Boy’s eyes are big and impressed. “You wanted to be trained by Batman, so you just _asked_? People just have to _ask_? Can I ask?”

Robin’s still a little pink under the attention, but he’s holding up much better than he was the last time Wally saw him. It makes you wonder how life’s treated him this far, if it takes so much adjustment when people act like his friends. Wally’s trying not to think about it.

“It, uh. It didn’t go down exactly like that. I mean, you _could_ ask-”

M’gann raises a hand. “Gar, you’re not going to ask Batman if he can train you. We’re training you just fine.”

Gar mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like _but he has cooler costumes_ , then brightens. “Woah, dude! I meant to say! You got some _serious_ upgrades!”

Tim smiles, a tiny, subdued thing. “Yeah, I did a bit of the redesigning not long ago. But Batman changed it before he even let me put it on. It’s _super_ heavy on the armour, uh, everywhere.”

Wally feels the temperature in the room drop a little, and his next breath comes ragged. There’s no hiding from it. This Robin’s lovely and clever as anything, but those are a dead boy’s clothes.

Thankfully, Garfield either misses the implications, or he’s got a lot more tact than Wally’d previously attributed to him. “Dude, that’s SO cool. They don’t give me any armour.”

La’gaan shouts, “You couldn’t handle the weight, scrawny!” from the other side of the room, at the same time as Robin’s brow makes a little furrow and he says, “Can’t you literally turn into a rhinoceros, though?”

Beast Boy slashes his hand through the air like he’s brushing off their aspersions. “Schematics. I think it’s cause they’re trying to get rid of me.” M’gann ruffles his hair, fondly.

This new Blue Beetle, whose name is Jaime Reyes, apparently, makes a noncommittal groaning sound. He’s watching Robin with wide eyes. “Armour isn’t everything, _ese_. ‘Specially when it pops out at the dinner table ‘cause it thinks your mother with a breadknife is an ‘amber level threat’.”

Robin gives him a sympathetic look. Gar just laughs at him.

“You’re settling in okay?” asks Wally, aware his silence is probably becoming uncomfortable. Robin’s shoulders flex in something imitating a shrug.

“You were right- your friends are nice. Nobody’s even yelled at me yet.”

Kaldur’s meditating on the other coach, cross legged and listening to something through his headphones that Wally genuinely thinks might be _whale songs_. He really, really hopes it is, anyway. At Robin’s words, he looks up, pulls off the headphones. Possibly he was just subtly eavesdropping, then. “I yelled at you.”

Robin blinks under his mask. “That was yelling? Oh. I'm- I'm really sorry.” Wally watches his tiny newfound confidence wilt a little.

Jaime looks confused. “That was yelling? You just kinda looked at him sternly for a few minutes.”

Deadpan, Kaldur says, “That was my yelling face,” and Wally’s trying to figure out if he’s supposed to laugh or not when the zeta sounds.

“It’s true,” says Gar, nodding sagely, unaware of how Robin’s tensed up beside him, like he’s resisting the urge to leap behind the armchair for cover. Oblivious rather than tactful, then.

Conner wanders into the seating area, followed by Nightwing. Dick’s eyes land on Wally, then skid over Robin, then do a glorious double take. “What the actual- _oh man_.”

Robin shrinks down further in his seat. He doesn’t say anything, and Wally had thought he’d looked cowed before, but maybe that was playful. Now he looks _afraid_ , even though anyone on Dick’s side who’s ever spoken to him for more than a minute might find that idea laughable. Oh, man, this one’s fucked up, huh.

Instinctively, he finds his body twisting away from the kid, towards Dick, a defensive stance. He’s not the only one, too. Dick stares at them, his team turned against him, and drops his head into his hands, sighing.

“ _Guys_ ,” he says. “ _Please_ tell me you didn’t kidnap and adopt the new Robin. Could you please just tell me that?”

Beast Boy’s eyes glint. “You want us to lie to you?”

Dick groans, although, to his credit, he doesn’t sound angry. “You guys don’t even- Batman’s gonna _kill_ me.”

“He was _lonely_ , Dick,” M’gann says, eyes wide and innocent.

“It’s not like we weren’t gonna meet him eventually,” offers Conner. Dick groans something that might be _traitor_.

“B wanted to introduce him to you in, like, a _week_. Not that that’s the point. We haven’t even finished training him!”

“It’s not their fault,” says Robin, a little tremor in his voice. He seems surprised to have so many defenders, like he doesn’t quite know what to do with them all. “I just- B’s always away in the daytimes, and I never knew what to do with myself. I swear I just wanted to _look_.”

Wally thinks he actually hears Dick’s heart melting. He grins to himself, small and private. Sure: the kid’s precious, lovable, and considerably fucked up. But he’s had years’ worth of experience of Robin playing him like a fiddle, and you don’t forget what that looks like.

Ooh, how the turntables fucking turn. Or something.

The tense line of Dick’s shoulders collapses. “Chill out, kid,” he says, weary.  Wally shares a smirk with Conner. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

\-----

One week later, they’re all on their ultimate best behaviour.

“Now, this may come as a shock to you,” Batman is saying, all growl and brutality. He’s gotten worse since Jason, undeniably harsher, and Wally feels for the new Robin. But the kid made his own choices. “But I want you to accept this new team member without question. I trust him, implicitly, as I trust you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Wally can see the edge of M’gann’s lip quirking up. He prays to the very speedforce to let them keep it together. And that’s _new_. He hasn’t felt this light, this connected to the team, wanted to laugh this hard, since. Well. It must be a Robin thing, is all he’s saying.

Batman steps to the side, and Robin’s silhouette appears in the zeta. A second passes as the image settles, and then Robin’s in front of them and he’s _smirking_. They’ve had a week to wreak their bad influences on this kid, before Batman announced a ‘surprise’ new member, and oh boy, is it showing.

Nightwing’s here now, too, and if Wally didn’t know him so well, he’d think Dick was unamused, but he’s pretty good by now at picking up on when Dick’s eyes are twinkling even when they’re obscured by a domino.

They’re all here to greet their ‘new’ teammate, mostly. Artemis, well. She says to say ‘good luck’ from her.

In the present, casual as anything, Superboy drawls, “Oh, hey, Rob.”

Robin nods. “How’ve you been? Did you ever wrap up that Venezuela thing?”

“Could’ve used your help,” Kaldur says. “The new interface you designed takes some getting used to.”

“But we’re super grateful, kid,” interjects Wally, still focused on the tiny downturn of Batman’s mouth that’s the most human expression he’s ever seen on the guy. “Really, where would we be without you?”

Beast Boys flaps to his shoulder as a great owl, a little undignified, perhaps. “Check it out! I’ve been practicing!”

Wally watches the great Batman survey the scene, his little secret Robin project surrounded by friends who very decidedly know who he is. He makes a little, decidedly un-Batman-like noise in his throat. Wally wouldn’t hear it if he wasn’t listening for it, but he is, and _holy shit_.

After a beat it registers the Batman is _laughing, what the fuck,_ and instead of doing something sensible like recording he just gawks until it’s over. Suddenly it’s not Batman in that suit but who Wally understands to be Bruce Wayne, with a sudden, human give to him. A creature recognisable not as steel but as tactile flesh and blood. It’s enough to give a poor speedster cognitive dissonance, or, more ironically, whiplash.

“My apologies,” says Bruce (?), although in the same gravelly tone as always, rubbing a weary hand across his eyes. “It’s been a while since I’ve been surprised like that. I’ll let you… catch up.”

A shocked silence follows him as he goes, until the room descends into chatter, near-hysterical. Wally somehow begins to feel very old, as if Batman’s absence has passed some unseen mantle onto him, weight beyond his years oppressive on his shoulders. Suddenly all he wants is to see Artemis again.

“Hey,” he says, approaching Robin, “welcome to the team, partner. Listen, I gotta go, but you look after them, y’hear?”

Robin nods and smiles and Wally knows, just _knows_ , that he gets it.

He walks into the zeta no longer concerned with endings; no longer scared for what he’s leaving behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -as always, thanks ever so much for reading!! i appreciate your lovely kudos and comments so much!!
> 
> -next chapter isn't strictly in line with the rest, as it deals with jason's return in the young justice universe, and so the team isn't actually in it. they'll be back for chapter five though!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason’s allowed one statement, surely, one moment of childish melodrama- call it making up for lost time. He’s going to zeta to the garden of heroes or whatever the fuck they’re calling it now, and he’s going to trash that shitty memorial, and it’ll be a promise. Or maybe proof. That boy is dead, after all- just not in the tidy, convenient way that the Justice League prefer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -this really isn't technically inkeeping with the rest of the fic, as it doesn't involve the team reacting to the secrets the batfam keep, but instead details the secret itself. however, i love jason too much to resist putting this in here. i hope you guys enjoy it anyway!!

It’s a hell of a stupid risk; that’s for sure. _Good_. Jason has missed those.

He stands in front of the zeta teleporter, made to look like a rotting bar entrance. Somebody’s even stuck a ‘condemned’ sticker on it, for dramatic effect, Jason supposes. His hands are clenched in his pockets, a humming thread of tension through the arc of his spine. He’s in the new helmet, obviously- _mmm, new car smell_ \- but he remembers these teleporters record the physical footprint of every intruder, and even without his face, that’s information he doesn’t need Bruce getting his hands on, yet, or anybody else for that matter.

He’s not ready to be exposed. This is so stupid. It’s the quiet dead of night, and he stands shivering with awful possibility, under stars obscured by thick smog. The idea of a confrontation with Bruce now delights and terrifies Jason in equal measure, sends quaking adrenaline through the bones of him. But- no. He’s not ready- raw and new in fundamental ways. Talia only allowed his flight a few months ago, and though he has a plan, it’s hazy, and there are preparations yet to be made.

Like this: when he practices what he will say in the mirror, when the time comes, the words are icy and brutal- they do his vengeance like fists, like cold steel. But his face, oh, his face is all wrong. He needs it to say _I am what you made me and I am more, I am teeth and fire and blood. There was a boy out there who you loved, who loved you, and if you will not avenge him then I will,_ dad _._

Instead there's an awful softness to his eyes, a tattered remembrance of love and belonging that he can't bleach out.

Instead it says _B, I'm scared_. It says _this world is too big and painful and I’m unlovable, now, there’s no going back._ It says _I'm gonna burn myself all the way out and you will not mourn me a second time_.

He banishes the thoughts from his head, pushes them into anger, instead. He needs all the anger he can find- it’s what this fool’s errand is for. It’ll keep him going, keep him burning, get him where he needs to be. Namely, one gun pointed at Bruce and the other at Joker. He’s allowed one statement, surely, one moment of childish melodrama- call it making up for lost time. He’s going to zeta to the garden of heroes or whatever the fuck they’re calling it now, and he’s going to trash that shitty memorial, and it’ll be a promise. Or maybe proof. That boy is dead, after all- just not in the tidy, convenient way that the Justice League prefer.

He only knows it exists because Talia told him, and the thought of her, of how stupid an idea she would think this was, sets determination iron-heavy into him. Fuck stalling. He isn’t scared. He’s the fucking Red Hood.

He steps in, dissolves into blue light. Hears “recognised: Robin, B13,” metallic and oh-so familiar.

Jason had _known it_. Known the old man would’ve been such a sentimental old bastard, or maybe just forgetful. Ha, not likely. Or maybe he’s just set off eighteen alarms at the Watchtower and they’re coming to lock him up somewhere he’ll never see the light of day again.

He rematerializes, surrounded by graves, and _laughs_ , long and low. Already he feels it buzzing in him, the Lazarus-green ringing at his pulse points that’s saying _let’s raise a little hell_. There are no cameras here- it would be _disrespectful_ \- and no life around for miles and miles- hence the zeta. He unclasps the pressure seal at the nape of his neck with a hiss and lifts the helmet off, shaking his hair out into the cold air. There’s a crowbar strapped to his back and he turns to his memorial- _awkward gangly limbs and sulky expression, like a child, like a kid, just a kid_ \- ready to use it, when a tiny noise sounds into the cold air.

His eyes snap to the side of the pedestal. A slim figure is slumped there, stirring, apparently asleep until just now. Jason considers making a break for it before it’s too late, tenses his legs to leap backwards, and then the figure says,

“But… but I'm Robin B13?”

Oh, fuck.

“Wait,” breathes Tim Drake, struggling to his feet. It’s like three- what the fuck? There’s a tense, stretching instant as he regards Jason, eyes very wide, and then turns to the memorial at his right. Jason can tell he’s on the verge of pinching himself. Yeah, imaginary-Talia was right. Horrible, terrible, very bad, no-good idea.

“Replacement,” he says, puts all the wickedness he can find into it. His hand pulls the crowbar from his back. “You might wanna stay out of my way.”

He advances, but Tim doesn’t shrink from him, like he’s _supposed_ to. The kid scrubs sleep from his eyes, and then fucking darts to Jason’s side, a skinny hand enclosing his arm, like the kid is checking to see if he’s corporeal.

He has… zero plan for this? His anger is for Bruce, for Dick, for being replaced, not for the kid that did it. He’d kinda envisioned making time in his schedule at some point to beat the shit out of him, on principle, but now that he’s here Tim just seems so goddamn _small_. His eyes are huge and blue and earnest even through his confusion, and Jason doesn’t know what he’s feeling.

“You can’t,” Tim tries, swallows. “I'm not trying to be rude, but you’re dead.”

Jason tries not to laugh. It’s kind of all he’s got, right now.

“But… the zeta let you through? But it _can’t_ \- you’re _dead_ ,” he says, more forcefully, as if he believes he can will the world into making sense.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Jason says, tries to make it hard, cutting, even as his world shifts beneath him. “Better luck next time, maybe? Speaking of-” he brings the crowbar down on his pedestal, hard, watching Tim only just flinch away out of the corner of his eye. His mind is clinging to this bizarre notion that things will be under control again if he can only complete his stupid fucking mission. One more hit from the crowbar and the thing flickers out. Thank god. Tim makes a little noise behind him, awestruck, and as he turns to leave, he forces himself to shoot the kid a grin.

Tim’s hand is on his arm again. What the _fuck_.

“I'm sorry,” Tim says, tripping over the words, “it’s just, you were kind of my hero, and I don’t know if this is a dream, and the team should be here any second so please don’t go-”

Jason’s eyes go wide. He rips his arm away. “You signalled the _team_?” he growls, fury rising to the surface of his mind, as it does so easy nowadays. But Tim doesn’t look afraid. It’s unfair, really, because on the inside Jason wants to collapse, wants to cry, wants to be sick. How did this all go downhill so fast?

Instead of cowering, as appropriate, Tim cocks his head, all of a sudden, asks, “Why are your eyes green? Surely not- not the Lazarus pit?” Even the name calls the simmering rage to the forefront of his mind like an incantation, and he makes a wordless noise of fury, stalking towards Tim before he can even _think_.

About at that point the zeta says something he can’t make out over the sound of his bounding pulse. A new voice appears, and Jason and Tim freeze in place.

“Tim? Did you fall asleep again-” and Jason knows how they must look, one of his hands wrapped around Tim’s throat, who, despite everything, is still looking at him like he’s a miracle, reverential. It’s too much- _was he really about to hurt this kid?_ \- and it isn’t helped by the blur of black and blue that slams into his side, pinning him to the ground.

“Stay _away_ from my- brother-”

Nightwing’s voice chokes abruptly even as Tim protests from above them, cut off in so much raw grief it overwhelms Jason. He watches Dick’s mouth move to form the first syllable of his name and _strikes_ , twisting his legs up in a way that hurts like hell and _pushing_ , slamming Dick to the floor brutally. It would never have worked with Dick in any other frame of mind, and he counts his blessings even with his plans in tatters around him.

He makes a break for it, scooping his helmet up, and is inches from the zeta when the same form hits him, sending them both tumbling over each other in a way that must hurt Dick at _least_ as much as it hurts Jason. And yet when he looks up at Dick this time the man isn’t hissing in pain or cursing Jason’s name or grieving some long dead little brother. He’s _jubilant_ , all unrestrained joy, and as his vision swims Tim appears in it, eyes still wide like he’s found something he’s spent his whole life looking for.

Jason can’t deal with the emotion, isn’t sure he’s retained the biological processes for it, and it slides under his ribs like cold steel.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Dick whispers, practically sparkling. “Slow down, yeah, little wing?” Jason wants to roll his eyes but instead has to squeeze them shut, keep back tears he didn’t know he was still capable of. The silence stretches, so fucking heavy, until Dick breaks it. “I… two days ago. It was the anniversary of that time we went skiing, remember? I brought flowers to your grave.”

What the fuck is Jason supposed to do with that? “I guess it’s the thought that counts,” he says, eventually, voice rough and uneven, “but, uh. My address changed a while back.”

Dick’s pin very quickly devolves into a tearful press against him, like he’s ascertaining that Jason’s solid all the way through. Tim sits, back propped against the memorial for Ted Kord, watches them, seemingly content. Personally, Jason has never felt more like screaming. He’s fucked. Everything he’s worked for- he’d like to blame Tim, but this is fully on him.

The scary part is this: what if Jason had come back here not to send a message, but in hope somebody would save him from doing what has to be done? What if this is what he’d wanted?

The scary part is this: Dick’s arms feel kinda good around him. It’s been a long, long time- Talia decisively Does Not Count- and he’s pathetically touch-starved. Is it so bad that he could live with being a little brother, just for a few seconds?

 _Yeah_ , says the green in his eyes, the icy core of his heart. _Yeah, that’s trouble, kid_.

The scary part is this: he does it anyway.

“I'm probably a shapeshifter,” he points out, quite reasonably in his opinion. Dick is still trying to pull himself together so Tim answers.

“The zeta let you through.” There’s really no need for him to look so smug about it.

Jason scowls. “I could be cleverer than the zeta.”

Voice choked, from where his head is buried into Jason’s chest, Dick says, “what did I get you for your last birthday? Before you- before I went off-world.”

Oh, so he can’t even _say_ it. That’s healthy. Jay honestly hadn’t thought he’d still be this choked up about it. “You took me out for breakfast,” he says, exasperated. “You got me a chemistry set. It was shit.”

Dick laughs, awful and shaky. Jason can’t do this. He longs for Talia, for her nameless baby, long conversations with just the three of them in the green light of the Pit. Talia had had to do most of the talking, but he hadn’t minded. He minds that she isn’t here to talk for him now- his mind’s a warzone, messy, and he doesn’t have the words to make anyone understand.

“Oh man,” Dick says, “this is- I feel like I'm dreaming? Bruce is gonna-” and Jason doesn’t hear whatever he says next, he’s consumed by overarching rage, a slow, thick burn in every part of his body. Dick isn’t holding him down anymore, even remotely, and so it’s disgustingly easy to flip him, reverse their positions, Jason now sitting on his brother’s chest. Tim evidently sees a kind of threat he hasn’t so far, and shrinks back into the pedestal.

“I wouldn’t,” he says, very carefully and deliberately, “talk to me about Bruce right now.”

Breathing slow, determined not to let the pit get the better of him, he gets to his feet. Both Dick and Tim move as if to follow him, to apprehend him again, and he’s so _done_ with this. He isn’t their Jason. He isn’t the kid who died, who got given that chemistry set, who joined the Team all those years ago, a mess of anger and vulnerability. It’s better they learn that now.

Both of them freeze solid when his hand moves steady to the holster at his thigh, pulls his pistol out and cocks it. Like they hadn’t even seen it until now. _That’s right, birdies_.

“Little wing-” Dick says, voice small, and Jason snarls, “Don’t call me that.”

For a second there’s a stalemate, and he spends it focused on not letting his hands shake. The League did their best to beat that instinct out of him, but it’s _hard_ \- in another life these people are his family.

Tim says, “it’s okay.” It doesn’t feel very okay. “Whatever you need from us, we’ll do. I swear. We won’t even tell B you’re back, not if you don’t want us to.” Dick shoots him a confused look but doesn’t argue.

Jason bites his lip. This is- this _kid_.

“Were you here to fight me? For Robin? ‘Cause you can have it, it’s okay, it’s yours anyway.”

Jason takes a proper look at the kid, hunched in the cold, sleep-ruffled, the defensive set of his shoulders, and laughs. It’s all he can do.

“Kid,” he says, “that’s- no. No, I don’t want _Robin_.” He does Tim a favour, pretends he doesn’t see the relieved slump. Weirdo- Jason could still be about to kill him. He gets it. He remembers back when Robin was _everything_. He hardens his voice, raises his gun, maybe even thinks he’ll go through with it for half a second. “I came here to destroy that fuckin’ monument to Bruce’s _hypocrisy_ and scram. But now I gotta deal with _you two_.”

Dick says, “hypocrisy?” at the same time Tim says, “you don’t, though.” He answers Dick ‘cause it’s easier, ‘cause he’s had those answers building up inside him for a long time.

“Yeah, _Goldie_. Problem with that? The man’s a fucking hypocrite. Has the nerve to _commemorate_ me, has the nerve to pass on the fucking suit like it’s anything but a _curse_. But getting rid of the guy who killed me? Stopping him from doing to other _kids_ what he did to me? Oh, he ain’t got the _balls_.”

Dick’s face is a mask of horror, and good. _Good_. Jason can deal with horror, can deal with anger and fight and _fear_.

But then. “Oh, Jason,” he says, so damn full of pity Jason wants to _scream_. “Jay, that’s not- however you’re taking it. It’s not like that. Look, this is a lot to take in, but we can _help you-”_

“You want to help me?” There’s definitely a tremor in his voice, now, and _fuck_ , he is not this weak. Not ever again. “Hey, do me a favour, hold the Joker’s arms for me, I’ll deliver the _punchline_.”

Dick flinches; Tim’s eyes are huge and shiny, like saucers.

“Want me to start crying and hugging you, want me to be your _little brother_? Want me to play happy families back at the Manor with Bruce and Alfie? ‘Cause _that ended well last time_.”

Jason’s voice is very ragged. This was not the plan. This is light years away from the plan. He could leap back through the zeta now, they wouldn’t stop him. Instead he steadies himself on the nearest pedestal, finds himself sliding all the way down it. A fragment of him is on the stinking, hot floor of a warehouse, choking on the words ‘Bruce will save me’ because there’s blood filling his mouth.

Someone kneels in front of him; he expects Dick, but it’s Tim.

“You didn’t know me before,” he says, simply. “I don’t want anything from you.”

And that. That takes all the breath right out of him.

It’s just, he’s not sure it’s ever been true of anyone before now. The kid reaches out, holds onto his wrists. His hands are pale and small. “You should go home; you’ve done what you came here to do.”

Dick makes a noise of protest, cut halfway off.

“Right, Replacement, and you expect me to believe you’ll just forget you saw me. Go back to Bruce and pretend like his second son’s not a dead man walking planning to put a _bullet_ in his head.” Dick sucks a breath in, and Jason says, viciously, “Oh, did I forget that part?”

“Sure,” says Tim, looks at him steadily. “I'm all about first impressions.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I can’t do anything about that.” Oh, wow. The balls on this kid. Jason thinks he would’ve liked him, in another life. He regards him, unblinking, and slides the gun back into its holster. Gets to his feet.

“Alright, then.” He shoots them a salute. “Well, I’d say it’s been fun, but. See you in hell, I guess.”

The last thing he sees before he steps backwards into the zeta is Dick lunge after him, and the Replacement _grabbing his arm._ Which, what?

He stumbles back to his safehouse from that grimy alley, mind numb, sits with a shotgun facing the door and waits for Batman to come. He doesn’t.

It’s just Jason, and the gun, and the door, and the green fog over his mind.

\-----

Three days later, Batman still hasn’t materialised. At that point Jason really needs to get groceries, so he gives up on Operation: Outlast Batman, but he’s still visibly shaking as he leaves the little apartment.

Nothing. Nobody. He buys his damn groceries and get back to the safehouse, no white-lensed eyes burning a hole in the back of his neck.

Which: what the fuck?

He guesses the replacement came through. It’s pretty damn impressive. And a lot more than he expected, to be honest- _Jason_ certainly never managed to get Dick’s brotherly instincts under control.

Which kind of begs the question- what does he do now?

He’s only been free of the League a few months, and Talia still requests updates on his training and how the Plan’s coming along. He’s not really in the mood to learn how to be a good little hellraiser, especially not in the mood to have to dispose of the evidence. And he hasn’t updated her on the situation, so she can’t know the Plan’s gone to shit. Probably. Probably gone to shit. Does he want to continue with it? He doesn’t know anything anymore.

\-----

Eight days from then, Tim Drake clambers through his window with a bag of hot Chinese, still steaming. Jason looks up from where he’s Bat-proofing his security system and curses.

“I’ll help you with that if you help me with these,” the kid offers, wafting the bag so fragrant steam blows in Jason’s face. Damn him.

“How do I know you haven’t poisoned it?”

“How do I know you’re not about to shoot me in the head? Let’s compromise.”

“You’re such a fucking smart-arse,” he says, thickly, a few minutes later, his mouth full of egg fried rice.

“How else do you think I got the job?” Tim asks, absentmindedly. He taps a few times at the keyboard and pushes it back with a satisfied smile. “Nobody’s been spying on you, not even Oracle, which mean’s Dick’s been a good boy.”

“Oracle?” Jason asks, feeling stupid.

“Oh, Batgirl. Y’know, Babs. There was a whole thing. She’ll tell you the story one day.”

Jason stares at him. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a bit forward?”

Tim shrugs, suddenly self-conscious under his gaze. “I _actually_ got the job by turning up at the mansion, announcing that Bruce Wayne was Batman, and then sneaking out in a Robin suit until he made it official. It’s been said.”

Jason stares some more.

“Oh, come on. It’s not like he ever wanted to give Robin to anyone ever again, not after you. He was falling to pieces. I had to fight just to try and keep him together.”

Jason’s head falls backwards onto the sofa, digesting this new information.

“Seriously? There are so many archived news articles about this. You didn’t research at all?”

“I was a little busy training as an _assassin_ , replacement. We don’t get out much.” Wow, Tim’s really good at irritating information out of him that definitely doesn’t need to be shared. But the kid _hasn’t_ shared it, for whatever reason. Jason can’t get a handle on him.

Tim’s eyes go very wide, and he breathes out, “thatis _socool_ ,” very fast. There’s silence for a beat, and his face colours. “Sorry,” he groans. “In case you haven’t worked it out, I was sort of your biggest fan.”

 _I don’t want anything from you_ , Jason’s ass. He finds he doesn’t mind. “Was?” he asks, and the kid colours further.

“…Am.”

Jason finds that he doesn’t mind his presence that much, after that.

Or the time after that or the time after that, or the time after that.

\-----

Tim’s at the foot of his bed, fiddling with something inside one of Jason’s helmets, refusing to let Jason use him as a footrest, eating Jason’s snacks, and just generally being a nuisance. It’s whatever. He’s disgustingly, domestically used to it by now. Tim has this look about him sometimes that’s like the anti-Lazarus- he squashes all Jason’s rage down flat.

He’d made Jay feel ridiculous about even considering the continuation of the Plan with words, yes- “You’re serious? The heads in the duffel bag thing? Dick’s just going to _tell him_ , you know.”- but also with that look. Now Jason hasn’t texted Talia back in months. And Tim’s bullied him into meeting up with Dick _twice_ with that look. The first time had been awful and Dick had cried and _he’d_ cried, a little, and just ugh, really. The second time was only a few days ago, when he’d finally agreed to try again, and they’d patrolled together and gotten some breakfast at like, four in the morning. Then Dick had pulled out a _fucking chemistry set_ with a _grin_ , and Jason had cried first, that time, so it was still awful but maybe in a slightly more redeemable way.

The point is that Tim has him _whipped_ , in a hero-worshipping sibling kind of way, and it’s no longer funny in the slightest. Jason has a _job_ , now, in a real-person, not-a-revenge-obsessed-zombie kind of way, and, yeah, he’d sent in his resume (heavily doctored) and he’d attended the interview, but it’s definitely Tim’s fault. Actually, Tim’s presence, unannounced as usual, has reminded him of something, and now he’s scrolling on his phone, looking for how to hypothetically register for online college with the birth certificate of a dead boy.

And since Jason’s hypersensitized to the look, he can tell that Tim’s giving it to him now. He figures Dick wants to see him again already, so he plays dumb.

“Yeah, babybird? Can I help you?”

Tim, satisfied he has Jason’s attention, returns to the helmet. “Dick’s getting real impatient, you know. Also, how have you not electrocuted yourself by now? The wiring in here-”

“God loved me enough to raise me from the dead, you think he’d let my _helmet_ kill me? And Dick knows my restraining order says he can only come within one-hundred feet once a month.”

“I would say it’s a miracle you’re alive, but I bet you get that a lot. And I don’t mean he’s frustrated for himself- he wants Bruce to know you’re alive.”

Jason sits bolt upright, phone clicking off. “Well, isn’t it sad how we can’t always get the things we want?”

Tim regards him, unimpressed. “There’s no reason to put it off. You’re on your whole new ‘no-killing’ thing, you’re relatively stable, Lazarus-syndrome-wise- he’s only gonna find out some other way.”

Jason scowls. “The reasons I'm not killing are nothing to do with him.”

“I know. It doesn’t matter, though.”

“He won’t find out if you don’t _tell_ him.”

“Yes, he will. You’re allowed to admit that you miss him.”

Jason grinds his teeth.

“If you’re done protesting..?” Jay doesn’t realise what Tim’s doing with his phone until it’s too late.

“Hey, B!”

He makes a kind of groaning scream and then has to muffle it, glaring.

“What, yeah, everything’s fine over here. We still on for brunch on Saturday?”

A voice Jason recognises says something he can’t make out. Until very recently that voice would’ve sent rage bubbling through him, but what with all the things Tim’s told him, now he’s just… sad.

“Oh, Dick _and_ Babs are coming? Nice. Hey, can I bring a friend?”

The voice reappears with a slightly sterner tone.

“What? No, it isn’t _Steph_. It _can_ be…”

Hasty babbling.

“Yeah, cool, see you. Bye!”

Tim clicks the phone off and sets it on the bed, looking a tad guilty.

Jason stares at him, open-mouthed.

The fucker even looks sorry for a few seconds, but then the corner of his mouth quirks and he says, “Maybe leave the duffel bag of severed heads at home, though,” and Jason has to leap across the bed and try and murder him. In a sane, well-adjusted, brotherly way, of course.

He’ll go, of course. Tim gave him the _look_.

… And he’s been missing Alfred, lately.

\-----

Okay, he’ll admit it, he’s had some pretty bad ideas recently. Smashing up his memorial- yeah, dumbshit move, even though he can’t bring himself to regret it anymore. The college idea is a pretty stupid dream, too- like he has the time, what with the whole vigilantism thing. But this is the dumbest scheme he’s been involved in for a while, and it’s _Tim’s_ idea.

Tim, who is rolling his eyes so hard Jason thinks something might burst. Jason, who’s got Tim’s hands twisted behind his back, hyperventilating, focused on keeping the kid away from the doorbell _at all costs_.

“ _Jason_ ,” Tim says, through gritted teeth. “Alfred buzzed my car in. He knows I should be at the door by now. He’s going to come out.”

“I can probably vault us over the fence by then,” Jason points out, not feeling one-hundred percent stable. Tim groans.

“If you tear my suit, I'm going to _kill_ you. Again.” And yeah, Tim’s in a suit? It’s a brunch thing, apparently- _fucking rich people_. Jason’s in blue jeans and a red hoodie, even forgoing the leather jacket, and he keeps telling himself it’s not because he’s consciously trying to imitate his fifteen-year-old self. He’s just, y’know. Doing it unconsciously.

“Okay, deep breaths, calm down, Jay,” Tim’s saying. “We don’t have to do this. I’m sorry if I pushed you. I’ll just say some emergency Robin stuff came up.”

God help him, Jason’s breath does slow, and he lets go of Tim, letting his eyes slip closed. Tim holds his shoulder, rubbing reassuring circles into the muscle there, until he’s stable enough to open his eyes again, scrub a hand across his face.

“What do you wanna do?” asks Tim. Jason’s on the verge of saying _I don’t know, Timbers_ , when, naturally, the door swings open.

“Master Timothy,” says that voice, _that fucking voice_ , a little older and scratchier, maybe, but Alfred all the same. It tears a little ragged breath out of Jason’s lungs.

The butler turns to him, the every line of his face scorchingly familiar. “And you are?” asks Alfred, and then his breath does a little stutter, and then Jason watches every stage of grief flicker over his face within a second. “ _Oh good lord_.”

Suddenly Jason isn’t the most overwhelmed person present, for the first time in a while. It’s kinda nice.

“Hi, Alfie,” he manages. “Been a while.”

The man gapes at him, and Jason gets the feeling they might be out here for a while. Tim pats Alfred’s arm, awkwardly, seemingly regretting his role as the bearer of good news.

“I’ll show us in, yeah?” Alfred manages a shaky nod, and, apparently on instinct, his knotted hand goes around Jason’s wrist and holds very tight.

The journey to the informal dining room (the manor has four) seems a lot shorter, lot smaller around him than he remembers. It strikes him for the first time how much he’s changed, how much this place has stayed the same.

Ahead of him, Tim swings open a door, announces to a roomful of people Jason _can’t see_ , “Don’t freak out,”.

Jay steps in, and there’s a moment of absolute silence as every eye in the room turns to him. That’s Babs- _god is that Babs?-_ and Bruce, and Dick. You could hear a pin drop.

Then, naturally, they freak out.

Bruce stands, immediately, every inch of him turned to steel in an instant, like his blood is frozen in his veins. That’s not Bruce: that’s Batman. Barbara recoils, as far as she can in the _wheelchair, what the fuck_. Dick makes a little shocked sound in his throat even though he _knows that Jason is alive already_.

“Hi,” he says. Alfred enters behind him, wiping a handkerchief across his face.

“We could start?” offers Tim. “I already ran the bloodwork, as well as every other test- there’s no point bundling him down to the cave.”

When nobody moves, he pulls out a chair and pours himself some coffee. It’s kind of badass and Jay would appreciate it more if he wasn’t locked in a staring contest with B.

“ _My son is dead_ ,” Bruce says, his hands white-knuckled on the edge of the table. His voice is something awful.

For some reason the more everyone else around him freaks out, the more okay Jason feels with it, like it’s confirmation that Tim is the insane one here, not him. He shrugs and takes a seat. “I got better.”

Babs’ eyes are very wide; he shoots her a tiny smile.

Bruce turns abruptly to Tim, who nods, drinking his coffee. “You’ve ran bloods? How long have you had him?”

Tim says, “ _had_ him?” at the same time as Dick says, wearily, “about four and a half months?”

Bruce spins to Dick, breath coming fast. Woah there, buddy. “You _knew_? _Four months_?”

Jason winces. Man. It’s like the good old days. He says so, and everyone goes back to looking at him.

He takes some toast. At this point, Alfred sort of collapses into a chair at the table from his standard butler position. It’s okay; nobody cares about that shit apart from Alfred.

He sighs. “B, it ain’t their fault. It’s mine. And I'm not fuckin’ apologising.”

Bruce says, “language,” on autopilot, and then goes very pale, lifts a hand to his mouth.

Jason sighs, the last of his anger ground down to dust. “C’mere, old man.” It seems to take Bruce an age to move around the table, but when he gets there, he pulls Jason very tight to his chest and holds him there; holds him like he never wants to let go.

Maybe it’ll be okay.

(After about ten minutes he can’t take it anymore and leaves through the window in a shower of broken glass. Sorry, Timmy, he tried. As a bonus, he estimates he has two minutes before every Bat in Gotham’s on his tail, in broad daylight.

It’s going to be the most fun he’s had in _ages_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -'wow, k8, you sure do like writing under the red hood aus a whole lot.' well, consider this: yeah
> 
> -seriously, thank you so much for reading!! feel free to share any thoughts you have with me, i adore reading you guys' comments!! see y'all next week for the team's reaction to jason's return (spoilers: they're pissed)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And neither of those scenarios factor in mentioning anything about Jason to the Team. So Dick just kind of… hasn’t.
> 
> Spoilers: he's gonna regret that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -to make up for me being a little late last week, here, have the final chapter a day early!!
> 
> -(oh yeah and spot the vine reference)

In Dick’s defence? He’s really, really, _really_ fucking tired.

As-in, like. Juggling babysitting the Outsiders with coordinating the Team with dealing with Bruce’s latest bullshit with tying up loose ends for the Justice League. And those are _Nightwing’s_ problems. Dick Grayson has a babysitting commitment he cannot cancel on and a _day job_.

All he’s saying is, the world is goddamn lucky he grew up in a circus, ‘cause that’s a _lot_ of fucking juggling.

Wow. He’s hilarious.

(He hasn’t slept in three days.)

The situation is this- a stealth ops squad, made up of Tigress, Superboy, Blue Beetle, and now Arsenal, has been in deep cover somewhere in the Amazon (nobody who isn’t Barbara Gordon has high enough clearance to tell him _where_ , ironically) infiltrating a cult. Well, a missionary outreach centre that was a cover for a cult that was a cover for a meta-human smuggling operation that might’ve been a thing for another cult, he’s a little hazy on the details. And, yeah, that’s not the stealth-ops team Dick would’ve gone with, either, but they’re three weeks too deep into this bullshit to be swapped out now. Arsenal was sent in as backup on week two, which wasn’t Dick’s decision _either_ ¸ but it doesn’t sound yet like he’s blown their cover, or indeed the _cult_ , straight to hell.

And, judging by the massively encrypted text he’s just received from Artemis, even this added firepower isn’t going to be enough to get them out of there.

A section reads, translated:

_Can’t have anymore metas involved, already too conspicuous and risky. What we really need is a Bat. I know Nightwing had a thing, send out Robin? Cannot emphasise enough how dead these culties want to kill us._

Actually, the authentic translated segment had a lot more swearing in it. Dick doesn’t even know why their encryption _covers_ swearing.

Tim has midterms coming up. He’d drop everything in half a second anyways, if Dick _told_ him, but. The kid doesn’t deserve that. Dick has a sneaking suspicion that however much he complains about his own workload, Tim’s is worse.

Dick only realises thoughts of the mission are easing him towards sleep when a tiny, smiling Lian Harper pops up in his vision. He manages not to swear at her. God, he’s not cut out for this babysitting thing.

She squints at him, small and displeased. “Daddy says you’re _fun_.”

He ruffles her hair, offers her a crooked grin. “Nah. I was the boring one; always did what my Dad told me. _Your_ Daddy, however…”

She makes a delighted squealing noise. “Naughty!”

“Sure,” he says, frowning at his phone. Usually he’d call Will for this kind of thing, not a Bat but second best. But here he is, minding house like a good friend so that Will can…

What was Will doing again?

 _Oh God_ , he needs to sleep.

“I’ll tell you all about how naughty he was,” he says, aware that Will is going to eviscerate him, “I just gotta sort this first, yeah?”

Lian pouts at him, very like her mother. He racks his brains- okay, uh, there’s Cass, but he’s still not comfortable sending her out of Gotham yet, and he doubts religious fanatism would be a wonderful place to start off. He genuinely considers Stephanie, Spoiler, for a minute, and then feels a stab of guilt when he realises she’s in Tim’s year and will be sitting the exact same exams. The last time he saw Hood was two weeks ago, when he caught him subtly ‘borrowing’ another Batplane. Bruce literally _cannot_ say no to him, and Jason is still enough of a little shit to take advantage _and_ to find it hilarious.

(“Jason. If you want us to keep bringing you along on missions, you need to communicate. Nightwing was almost set alight by the blast.”

“Yeah, but _did he die_?”)

It’s like the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Dick reflects. Jason can act however he wants when their presence with them, day-to-day, is a sheer miracle. Especially since Jason had stopped killing, stopped his crusade for revenge, long before he’d seen Bruce again. Meanwhile Dick and Tim, who’ve managed to act like vaguely rational people for the duration of their time with the Bat, have, like, _standards_ to live up to. It would be more irritating if he didn’t feel such a stab of joy at the sight of Jason, _his brother_ , new and alive, like a sunburst inside of him.

But Jason’s gone, to… Dick thinks he said Colombia?

Huh.

 _You still south of the border?_ Reads the text he sends off eleven seconds later. Lian crawls into his lap and pokes at his stomach.

“In a minute, baby,”

To his credit, it only takes Jay a few moments to respond.

_sure. finished cleaning up a while back. i'm soaking up some sun since gotham hasn’t invented that yet_

Typical.

_What’s your opinion on deathcults? Specifically, on busting the Team out of one? Asking for a friend xx_

He really hopes Lian isn’t old enough to read. What age do babies read at anyway? God, Will could’ve asked literally anybody who knew more about children to do this.

_oh, well, if it’s for a friend. tell O to text me the details :-)_

Sometimes you can tell Jason is a boy out of time, sucked out of regular life for years. Mostly this crops up when the Red Hood ends his texts with smileys.

Thing is: having Jason back isn’t even real half the time. It doesn’t seem real _now_ , when they’re miles away, and sometimes seems just as fake when they’re face to face. And Jason’s being so _chill_ about it, all things considered. So it’s like he never came back, but equally like he never left.

And neither of those scenarios factor in mentioning anything to the Team. So Dick just kind of… hasn’t.

It’s like… okay, so first Jason was this huge secret, that Tim was insisting he keep, on pain of death. Then he became this precious thing, no longer a secret, but so treasured and _wanted_. And it’s kinda like that unspoken rule between children: speak a wish aloud and it’ll never come true. Talk about Jason, to Bruce, to the Team, to anybody, and maybe one day you’ll wake up and he’ll never have come back, dust on the edges of memory.

And so by the time he became _normal_ , blessedly ordinary Jason, Dick’s subconscious just kind of assumed this was normal for everyone. And after that, it just never came up.

And Dick’s really, really tired. He sends the text and turns his attention to Lian and, in his mind, there’s just another problem solved.

Spoilers: he’s gonna regret that.

\-----

“Wow, _Tigress_ ,” hisses Roy, keeps his voice quiet and controlled although adrenaline is flooding his body, “sure can’t wait until your _Bat_ turns up!”

Artemis actually pauses her rapid onslaught of arrows to turn and glare at him. “A Bat _would’ve_ been the best choice for a covert mission! This has just _not remained_ a covert mission!”

He grits his teeth, rolls to the side as his previous position disappears under a barrage of bullets. Flings himself up one of the crumbling stone columns- he’ll snipe better from up there, anyways. “Why’re you yelling that at _me?_ I didn’t fucking blow our cover!”

“I'm sorry!” yelps Blue Beetle for the hundredth time, dodging enemy fire. The ceilings in this place are low and there’s limited room for his manoeuvre in here, but he still does an impressive job. Roy quite likes the kid, not that he’d ever tell anyone that. Reputation, and all.

“Wasn’t just your fault,” growls Conner, diving straight for another squad of gunmen. Their progress forward is slow and steady, but they could be miles underground. Backup needs to come soon if any of them want to see sunlight ever again. “Mine too. It’s besides the point- assigning blame helps nobody.”

Roy bites his lip in concentration, arm moving from one target, to the next, to the next. “It makes me feel better!”

“You’re just making yourself angrier!”

“Maybe I shoot better when I'm angry!” A section of ceiling comes down in front of them and they dart forward as one. Superboy and BB fly through the narrow gap and Tigress and Roy follow swiftly with grapples, leaving the gunmen behind, at least for a couple of seconds. Of course, there are _fresh_ gunmen on this floor, but these guys are new. Diversity- it’s the spice of life.

He says so aloud, gets a robotic chuckle in his ear for his pains.

“Who-” says Superboy, eyes roaming the dusky halls for evidence of threat.

“Relax, clone. I'm just the backup. You’re four floors down.”

“Di- Nightwing sent you?”

“Sure did, buddy. Let’s not make him regret it. I’ve got a tunnellin’ device headed down to where you are. Send someone up through there, they can work their way back down with me, and I’ll meet the rest of you in the middle. It’ll be easier to flank the fuckers.”

Roy tenses up instinctively at the idea of crawling through metres of cramped tunnel- he’s seen the Bats use these things before. Right on schedule, there’s a mechanical whir a few feet behind them, something silver and shining bursting through the packed dirt.

Artemis must see him stiffen. “No worries, Arsenal, I got this. The other two wouldn’t fit, anyways.”

He feels a familiar trickle of rage. “What, are you shitting me? It’s just a tunnel- I'm not a _child_.”

“Arsenal,” she tries, but he’s already headed for the tunnel, fitting his shoulders through the narrow gap.

A few feet in, he’s regretting it. It’s not hard to move through- the arm probably helps. But darkness, pressure on all sides- he has an uneasy relationship with these sensations, even now. He’s embarrassed himself enough times being thrown into panic attacks by the gentle press of bedsheets.

His breathing is just starting to quicken when there’s that voice, again. “ _Wow_. Got something to prove?”

Roy always does better with someone to antagonise. “Who the hell are you supposed to be, again?”

There’s an unexpected nervousness to the guy’s tone. “What, you mean Nightwing didn’t mention who he was sending in? Oh, who am I kidding, of course he fuckin’ didn’t. It’s the Red Hood. You’re halfway there, by the way.”

Roy refuses to feel gratitude towards this asshole as he squirms towards the surface, but the promise of daylight is almost as good as the real thing when it spills onto his face.

He clambers out, spits dirt, gets his first proper look at this Red Hood guy. Typical form fitting bodysuit, under a leather jacket that isn’t so typical. Guns strapped to his thighs, to his waist, to his back… holy _fuck_ that’s a lot of guns.

Roy thinks he might be in love. Grimaces internally when he realises how he must look- caked in dirt, a slightly crazed look about his eyes.

He can’t tell if Hood is smirking at him, since there’s a huge fucking red helmet in the way, but the incline of his head seems to indicate so. And then he pulls it off, so Roy can see eyes widened in disbelief.

“No _way_ ,” he says. “Roy fucking Harper? There’s no fuckin’ way. Red Arrow? What happened to the arm?”

Roy blinks at him, almost too busy registering how goddamned pretty he is to respond. “Woah, you’re _way_ out of the loop.” His eyes are green, his hair dark and a little curly, blowing in the slight breeze. “Roy Harper, yeah. Red Arrow? Not so much.”

Hood looks confused for a second, but only a second. He _is_ a Bat, allegedly. Then his eyes flick up to meet Roy’s, filled with something dark and impressed. He whistles, long and low. “The original? He _found_ you?”

“Jesus, what rock have you been living under?” Hood barks a laugh, like he’s said something particularly funny. They regard each other for a second.

Hood breaks the eye contact, clicking his helmet back into position. “Uh. Anyways, we should probably get onto helping the rest of you poor bastards.”

 _Oh, yeah_. “Man,” he says aloud, as they slip seamlessly into combat stances, move towards the ground floor of the church. “I am so not cut out for this superhero team thing. I just wanna cave in some heads and go home.”

Hood stills, looks at him like he’s just said something really, really interesting.

Forty minutes and multiple caved in heads later, Roy Harper would like to amend his original statement.

He _knows_ he’s in love.

He hadn’t believed Hood could be a Bat at first- he’s never fucking heard of the guy, doesn’t recognise his face at all. But when they dispatch the first wave of gunmen, he’s a fucking _joy_ to behold. Hood slips seamlessly into and out of the shadows, the only sign of life a tell-tale, silvery glint off the barrels of his guns. When they started, he was almost surgical, all sniping positions and subtlety. But now, when all hope of a stealthy entrance is dead, he seems to be really fucking enjoying himself. He’s _laughing_ , long and low and throaty, and there’s an element of performance in his high, twisting kicks, the little arch of his spine when he lands that’s just for Roy.

And when he pulls out the fucking _rocket launcher_ , Christ, well. Roy has to bite down on his lip to stop himself from making a noise that would frankly be only embarrassing.

“Do I want to know where you were keeping that?” he asks, voice a shade lower than usual. Hood turns to him, and though he can’t actually see the man’s face, he’s pretty sure that’s a leer. But instead of turning it on the waves of enemies Hood scans the ground for a moment, points it at a point a few meters in front of them, and pulls the trigger. Roy would like to think he was taking the time to make sure he wouldn’t collapse the whole building, but really, knowing the Bats, it could just be for the drama.

When the dust clears, he and Hood saunter over to the hole, in unison, see Tigress, Superboy, and BB squinting up at them.

“Rescue,” says Hood, spreading his arms. “Boom. You’re welcome.”

\-----

It seems a lot less glamorous when they’re on their second hour of tramping through the dense jungle. The Team is tense and tired and distrusting and it really shouldn’t be burning this much of a hole in Jason’s gut. It’s pathetic.

He thought… he’s not sure what he thought. That they’d be happy to see him? Relieved, at least? Hell, he _knows_ he should know better, after everything, but just a ‘I'm glad you’re not dead’ would’ve been real nice. He wonders absently how many people were requested for backup before him. Poor, crazy zombie Jason. Probably just a memory from a time they’d all rather forget.

The thing that really stings is when, after the quickest possible debriefing, he’d fallen into step beside Artemis on the way back to the Batplane, and she’d sped up to get away from him.

It makes his chest and his throat ache, and it’s stupid and human and _weak_. He’d just thought- not a lot is coherent, from before the Pit, there aren’t a lot of memories he can trust. But he’d really, truly believed they’d been close- and him and Conner, too, who now isn’t even looking at him. He’d held them near to his heart, in the heartlessness of the League. _I love them. They would have given a shit that I died._ But he supposes those are a child’s delusions, and he hasn’t been a child in a good long while.

There’s no reason for it to fucking hurt so much. He wishes he’d never accepted this stupid mission- wishes he’d just texted ‘ _fuck you dickie_ ’, turned over to get some sun on his back. He’d been halfway through ‘ _The Kite Runner_ ’, for fuck’s sake, and even that hadn’t messed him up as much as this is.

… the new Roy seems cool, though. The old Roy, he should say. Red Arrow never had much time for him, seemed to regard him as an annoyance at best, but this kid’s eyes are filled with something much more like respect. Obviously, Roy’s fucked up six ways to Sunday, no doubt about it. But, hell, it’s not like Jason can judge. And what he says about teams- Jay gets it. Sometimes what should be people having your back just feels like a weight upon it. In his case, the weight of judging eyes, the weight of poor little Jason Todd, age fifteen and three quarters, gone before his time. He suspects Roy’s problems taste a little different from his, but then again. The kid’s in the shadow of the version of him who came before- Jason can respect that.

He wants to talk to Roy, actually, even if it’s just meaningless ragging. Just to make him forget about the Team members he isn’t talking to, apparently, just for a while. But Blue Beetle got pretty banged up before Roy and Jason got to him, and so Arsenal’s trailing behind with him, supporting his weight.

He tries to clear his aching head, checks the portable computer at his wrist. Batplane thirteen minutes away. He’d originally landed it wherever, then driven to the tracking signal on his motorbike. But he’d had to disassemble that for the piece of it that doubles as a tunnelling device, and oh boy, is he regretting that now.

“Thirteen minutes away,” he tells the team, because he can’t bear the awful, sticky silence. Artemis swats at a mosquito on her arm and murmurs, “thanks, dude,” without looking at him. He wonders if the helmet makes it easier for them to pretend like Jason is still an angel, absent yet loved, rather than the messy, bleeding fuck-up five feet away from them. Considers taking it off just out of spite, but those mosquitos look _nasty_ , and he doesn’t want them anywhere near his face.

They arrive at the Batplane in silence. It’s a nice one, because if Jason makes his eyes big at Bruce he can get away with anything barring murder. It’s almost worth the whole crowbar thing, really. He gets in the shower and feels better for a whole five minutes before the hot water starts to run out and he has to get back in his grimy uniform and face the Team, again. It’s ironic because he didn’t even offer them a lift, but whatever.

“Ready to go?” Artemis asks, from the co-pilot chair. Her mask isn’t off, and Jason wants to tell her that it’s chill, that the mission is over. He supposes deep cover in a deathcult isn’t great on the paranoia. And then again, neither is his. The idea of judgemental eyes on him, raw and heavy, isn’t something he can take right now.

“Sure. Where’s Blue?”

Conner scans the room, like he’s only just noticed Beetle is missing. Sure enough, there’s only Roy, scraping the dirt out from the crevasses in his metal arm with a knife. Edgy bastard.

“Oh, uh, he said he wanted to take photos for his biology teacher? He’s a huge nerd,” says Artemis, absentmindedly, and there’s something so soft in her voice, a softness that used to apply to Jason, lifetimes ago. Jay shrugs and moves for the door, to collect their stray. Can’t be anymore suffocating out there than in here.

Blue Beetle _is_ taking pictures, although it takes a moment for Jason to realise it’s him, since the suit is off. He’s tall, golden skinned, not wiry but not bulky either. The kind of build you’d expect on someone who’s a powerhouse, but not entirely by their own right.

The kid’s younger than he was expecting, and the sudden power difference between them unsettles Jason, so he figures what the hell, takes his own mask off too. It’s not like he has a secret identity to protect, not like in the old days. (And that lasted all of ten minutes, thanks to Dick.)

“Hey,” he calls, and the kid doesn’t startle, so either he’s less oblivious than he looks or the scarab notified him. What? Jason did his research.

“Yo,” he says, turning, and then surprise does register at Jason’s unmasked face. “Hood, right? I’ll be done in a second. Hey, get one of me?”

It’s such a mundane request he finds himself unable to say no, takes the phone from Beetle. The kid seems so _friendly_. Maybe it’s ‘cause Blue didn’t know him before, like Arsenal didn’t. There’s less shit between them to wade through. He gets the picture, Beetle at the edge of the clearing, backdropped by hanging vines and the dark sprawl of the jungle. But when he examines it, the kid’s squinting towards the camera, like he’s confused.

“I swear I know you from somewhere,” he says, which, what? Jason blinks at him and he shrugs. “It’s Jaime, by the way, since I figured you Bats already knew.” He takes back the phone, grinning in satisfaction.

“I'm not much of a Bat,” says Jason, “but good to meet you. Jaime. I like the bug costume.”

Jaime gives him a Look. “I like the jacket. Very nineties. And you must be enough of a Bat, since that’s what Artemis asked for, _ese_.”

Off-kilter in a way he can’t describe, Jason just gives him a grin, heads back towards the plane. There’s a missing piece here he can’t find, something he’s not getting. This whole mission has been weird. He wonders vaguely if the entire team have been cloned and replaced by the deathcult, and if he’s gonna get the shit for it.

He enters the plane, says, “he’s on his way,” watches every eye in the place swivel to him at the sound of his voice. Unmasked for the first time, he realises.

Wait.

No. Dick fucking wouldn’t. He absolutely fucking _would not_.

Conner seems frozen in place, leaning against the wall, his mouth a little open. Artemis makes a tiny squeaking noise as he turns to her, pulls off her mask with shaking hands.

 _Oh my God he fucking would_.

“Jay?” she asks, tiny and vulnerable and _fuck_.

He actively _flounders_ , taking a step back and then another, just in time to bump into Jaime, who’s come in behind him.

“Uh,” he says, a steadying hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Did I miss something?”

Arsenal looks half unbalanced, half amused. “No idea, bug boy.”

Conner seems to recover use of his limbs and crosses the plane to clutch at Jason’s upper arms. “Jason? What the _fuck_?”

Jason can’t handle it, being trapped between the two of them, and breaks away, heads for the drawer by the pilot’s seat. He’s acutely aware of the eyes on him as he rifles through it. _There_ \- his last pack of cigarettes. ‘Cause he’s literally not gonna get through this any other way.

“Alright,” he starts, pulling one out. Resists the urge to say _you guys look like you’ve seen a ghost_. “Dickiebird didn’t tell you. Okay, some things actually make sense now.”

Artemis gapes at him. “ _Tell us_? Your death was _faked_? Like mine?”

He blinks, pauses in the middle of lighting up. “Uh, _no_. You faked your own death? Nice.”

Conner stares at him like he’s crazy, which is rich, seeing as Conner’s the one chatting to a dead boy. “It was not _nice_. And you must’ve faked something!”

Oh, man, he’s really bad at this. “I really didn’t. I was dead. I'm sorry, I thought you knew. Scouts honour- one day I just woke up six feet under and crawled on out.”

More staring. Great. He loves it when people stare at him. He takes a drag of his cigarette, hands trembling.

“Okay, yeah,” says Roy, who seems vaguely amused. “I'm pretty sure I'm missing something.”

Jaime’s eyes are very wide. “You’re the Robin. The one that died.”

Jason tips him a salute with the hand holding the smoke.

“Robin died?” asks Arsenal, doing that thing clone-Roy used to do where he masks his interest with manufactured boredom.

He wants to reply _who’s out of the loop now?_ but then he’s being crushed against something warm and solid and strong, and, _oh_ , that’s Artemis. That’s Artemis hugging him. He finds his arms wind around her without his consent, and are those tears welling in his eyes?

It’s just- he was so prepared to be unwanted that the raw emotion swallows him in a flood. _They did miss me. They did love me_.

“You’re going to set yourself on fire,” he mumbles, thickly. _Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry_.

Roy’s voice, all-too-amused. “Those things will kill you, y’know.”

And that’s the sound of Conner punching him in the shoulder. It’s nice to know there’s still some justice in the world.

Artemis pulls back, and _fuck_ , there’s nothing hidden, nothing concealed. Her face is open and devastated. Her grief stabs into his chest, barbed and brutal. “How _could you?_ You just disappeared one day, nothing from Batman, nothing from _nobody_. It was two fucking months before I found out!” Her voice breaks. “Everyday I woke up telling myself _it’s gonna be okay, he’s gonna be okay-_ ”

“Arty,” he says, raising his hands in surrender, “I am, I'm fine, I'm right _here._ ”

“How long?” she demands, voice like cold steel. “How long have I been leaving flowers at an empty fucking grave?”

He slumps. “Two years. Maybe more. I really, really, _really_ thought Dick had told you.”

Her eyes flash, hot, shining grief and anger. Conner places a hand on her back. Jay can’t get a read on him, his own vision blurring.

“Jason,” he says, clear and strong and warm, and Jason lets himself fall forward into them, lets himself just have this. “We- we didn’t know what to do, when you were gone, not for a long time. It- it was never the same.”

Jason’s throat is aching, but it’s a good ache. “I, uh, really thought you all just didn’t care, huh.”

“New operation,” says Roy, entertained, “mission: kill Dick Grayson?”

“Oh, yeah,” says Artemis, hands fisted in his jacket. “Yeah, we’re doing that.”

\-----

Tim’s been studying for these exams for about eight hours straight. He thinks his _eyeballs_ are going to fall out. Usually when Dick Grayson turns up in his room he feels a mix of things- apprehension, fondness, concern- but now it’s just an overwhelming feeling of relief. Whatever Dick wants from him, it literally cannot be worse than analysing _Moby Dick._

“Heeeyyy, little bro,” he says, dropping down obnoxiously on Tim’s bed, squinting at the papers he’s surrounded by. Tim doesn’t understand how the organisation system isn’t immediately obvious. “As your brother I'm legally mandated to stop you from studying anymore today, _you’re welcome_.”

Tim squints up at him. “Aren’t you meant to be babysitting?”

Dick grins, ruefully. “Will came home early. Apparently, date night with Cheshire didn’t go well, _shocker_.”

“Yeah, you of all people have no right to comment on other people’s relationships.”

Dick makes a wounded face at him. “You are so _cruel_.”

“Walk it off.” He glances down at his textbooks, a migraine looming. “I’ll accept your intervention, though, congrats.”

“Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”

Tim’s phone buzzes, the quick, two-tone noise that indicates League business. He holds up a hand to silence Dick, who looks a little miffed, and opens the text. It’s from Artemis, which is weird. She doesn’t usually have a lot to do with him.

_Got a mission for you, little bird. Get Dick to the Watchtower without making it sound like we’re going to ambush and murder him?_

Tim considers. It’s Artemis, she’s probably 100% justified. Also, whatever Dick’s done now- possibilities whirl through his mind, but nothing concrete sticks- it’ll probably be really fucking funny.

“Oh, _shit_ ,” he says aloud, allowing his face to slide into something prickly and annoyed. Again, after the day he’s had- not hard. “Cassie says they’ve found some files by the monitors they think are probably mine. _Fuck_ , I knew I’d missed something with the Alfonsi case, last week, you remember?”

Dick tuts at him, buying it hook, line, and sinker. “Ooh, and paper copy’s only for _top_ top secrets. You’re gonna be in deep shit, little birdie.”

Tim glares, privately relishing whatever shit Dick’s got himself into now. Asshole. “Swing by the Watchtower with me? And then we can do bonding and get burgers or whatever.”

“Sure,” Dick says, all smiles even though Tim knows that look about his eyes means he’s horribly sleep deprived. “I won’t even tell B you fucked up ‘cause I'm so lovely that way.”

Tim scrubs a hand across his eyes, standing. “Oh, he knows. He’s just gonna wait until I'm off-guard to yell at me, believe it.”

“Yeah, I know, I was just trying to make you feel better.”

Tim shoves at him, maybe with a little too much force considering B doesn’t actually have anything to be mad about; naturally Dick dodges it anyway. There’s finally a zeta in the Cave after years of working away at Bruce’s paranoia, so at least the detour isn’t a long one. Tim tries not to let his amusement show as they head down together in case Dick catches on, but the adrenaline of a secret buzzes in his veins.

He heads into the blue light first; when he sees exactly who’s waiting for Dick on the other side, a grin cracks his face for the first time today. Artemis and Conner, fuming, a bemused looking Roy Harper and Jaime Reyes, and behind them, looking part uncomfortable and part amused- Jason.

Oh, _yeah_. He sees the issue.

Ooh, Dickie’s in deep shit.

_Recognised, Nightwing. B01._

“Dick Grayson,” Artemis says, eyes like fire and voice like cold steel. “What the everloving _fuck_.”

Tim flinches, but there’s nobody here who didn’t know Dick’s identity to start with.

“Hey, Artie,” he says warily. “What’s- oh.”

Tim watches comprehension dawn on his face; blinding, obvious, glorious.

“Yeah,” says Conner. “Oh.”

“Um, I know what this looks like, but there’s actually a pretty funny story here. Y’know, I like to think that one day we’ll all look back and laugh. Do you remember that one time we were on Infinity Island?”

Artemis gives him another Look. Dick shuts up.

“ _What is it with you Bats?_ ” she demands, voice high and clipped. “First you don’t care enough to let me know Jason is dead, and now- what the _fuck_ , Richard?”

Tim stifles his grin, slinks off to somewhere Dick can’t see him and accuse him of treason. Before he goes, he does note the expression on Jason’s face, surprised and pleased, like the care and love they hold for him is some kind of foreign body, unidentifiable, but shot through his bloodstream just the same.

\-----

After about five minutes Artemis’ yelling got dangerously tearful, and Jason was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. It’s not really possible to make a stealthy escape from the Watchtower, so instead he makes his way over to one of the columns instead, watches the fireworks from a safe distance. He’s not expecting Roy Harper to appear next to him, but he isn’t exactly complaining either.

“Hey.”

This new (old) Roy is still jarring, stark and sharp-edged and clean. He hasn’t bulked out like his predecessor, yet, and though he’s pale, a faint layer of freckles dots his skin. His approach is sounded by the faintest whirring of machinery, joints of metal clicking together, percussive. The sight of him, smirking and feral and entirely out-of-place in the sterile Watchtower, twists up something in Jason’s insides, feelings he hasn’t had to worry about in a while.

“Zombie boy,” Roy says, all edge and teeth and just a little too close. “Hey.”

“Someone’s a little more confident now they’re not covered in dirt?”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

Jason bares his teeth. “Please. Us Bats have a little dignity.”

Roy hasn’t broken eye contact, and it tastes like a challenge. “Would that be the dignity you were crying into Tigress’ shoulder?”

“Real men cry. You didn’t let loose a manly little tear or two when you came back from the dead?”

“Please, was a little too busy hunting down Lex Luthor for that.”

“Right,” says Jason, “and that plan worked out so well.”

Roy shrugs, the metallic whirring briefly increasing in pitch at the movement. His flesh fingers press at the pulse point of his metal wrist, turning it to and fro in the light. “Turned out pretty okay from where I'm standing.”

Jason breaks the eye contact to let his vision drop down to the arm, focus admiringly on the craftsmanship there for a beat too long to be innocent. “Suppose you’re right,” he says, voice pitched a shade lower. “You know, I was thinking over what you said.”

Roy blinks at him, eyes a little wide like he hadn’t expected Jason to match him beat for beat. “You might have to be more specific.”

Jason makes quotation marks in the air. “’Not cut out for this superhero team thing. Just wanna cave in some heads and go home.’ I was just thinking that sounded like my type of gig.”

Roy raises an eyebrow. “What, no Watchtower, no briefings? Us and our guns against the world, right?”

“Depends. Got any friends you’d rather bring along?”

Roy flashes him a smile, bright, like he can’t quite believe they’re being serious. “Nobody who’s jumping out at me, Jaybird.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “Yeah, ground rule one- nicknames are gonna be a hard no.”

“Aw, try and stop me.”

“I could _try_ ,” he says, and Roy colours. It’s pretty and obvious against his pale skin, and triumph curls in his stomach. He likes this kid. “Wanna get out of here?”

“ _Please_ ,” Roy says, and relief washes over him in a wave.

Ah, well, not like a stealthy exit was an option anyways.

The yelling pauses for a moment as both Dick and Artemis twist to watch Roy and Jason leave, faces lit with twin scheming smiles. A beat.

“Oh, boy,” says Dick, suddenly sounding awfully tired, “that isn’t gonna end well.”

\-----

_‘i want world domination just like everybody else,_

_so, if you hear me talking strategy_

_it's only to myself._

_everybody's gotta have a game plan-_

_cut it up a couple different ways._

_just hope no one remembers these, the darkest of my days.’_

-‘The Plan (Fuck Jobs)’ by The Front Bottoms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -whelp, here we are guys!! to everyone who's read this, especially those who have left lovely kudos and comments, i am so thankful!!
> 
> -before i forget, you should all definitely go listen to the song i quoted- it's a huge mood for jason and i love it a whole lot
> 
> -this might not be the end of this project, as i have ideas for another chapter or two, but nothing in the works yet. so watch this space, but don't get too excited, yeah? and let me know what you wanna see!! more reveals? damian's arrival? birdflash, jayroy, anything! i'm so grateful to all you lovely readers for sticking with this and i just wanna make you happy!!

**Author's Note:**

> as usual, thank you so much for reading my work!! if you liked it or had any questions please don't hesitate to drop a comment down below, i love talking to you guys!! thank y'all so much!!


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